Archive

Quotes

Anyone who doesn’t know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1821

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

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

—Bertrand Russell, 1961

Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so is he.

—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BC

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

—Samuel Johnson, 1773

Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?

—Marcel Marceau, 1958

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

I live by good soup, and not on fine language.

—Molière, 1672

The more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation.

—Plato, c. 375 BC

I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.

—Xenocrates, c. 350 BC

Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.

—George Orwell, 1944

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