Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

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.

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

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

The newspaper is the natural enemy of the book, as the whore is of the decent woman.

It is a luxury to be understood.

It is impossible to translate the poets. Can you translate music?

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Man is the one name belonging to every nation upon earth: there is one soul and many tongues, one spirit and various sounds; every country has its own speech, but the subjects of speech are common to all.

Information can tell us everything. It has all the answers. But they are answers to questions we have not asked, and which doubtless don’t even arise.

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

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

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