Archive

Quotes

Language is the armory of the human mind and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests. 

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1817

I sometimes think of what future historians will say of us. A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers.

—Albert Camus, 1957

In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.

—Voltaire, 1764

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

—Jane Austen, 1818

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.

—E.M. Forster, 1910

Unexemplary words and unfounded doctrines are avoided by the noble person. Why utter them?

—Dong Zhongshu, c. 120 BC

Words pay no debts.

—William Shakespeare, 1601

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.

—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969

The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms.

—Galen, c. 175

How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.

—Søren Kierkegaard, 1843

Language is the archives of history.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844

Methinks the human method of expression by sound of tongue is very elementary and ought to be substituted for some ingenious invention which should be able to give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once.

—Virginia Woolf, 1899

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

—Samuel Johnson, 1773