Unexemplary words and unfounded doctrines are avoided by the noble person. Why utter them?
—Dong Zhongshu, c. 120 BCQuotes
Writing cannot express words fully; words cannot express thoughts fully.
—The Book of Changes, c. 350 BCLanguage 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, 1817Methinks 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, 1899Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1921I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.
—Xenocrates, c. 350 BCEvery man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.
—Jane Austen, 1818Making a film means, first of all, to tell a story. That story can be an improbable one, but it should never be banal. It must be dramatic and human. What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out?
—Alfred Hitchcock, 1962It is impossible to translate the poets. Can you translate music?
—Voltaire, c. 1732Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.
—Charles Lamb, 1833Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
—Samuel Johnson, 1780No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.
—Bertrand Russell, 1961I 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