Language is the house of being. In its home human beings dwell. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of this home.

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.

The only authors whom I acknowledge as American are the journalists. They indeed are not great writers, but they speak the language of their countrymen, and make themselves heard by them. 

The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.

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

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

Language is the archives of history.

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

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

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

What a glut of books! Who can read them? As already, we shall have a vast chaos and confusion of books; we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.

It is a luxury to be understood.

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.