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Quotes

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

—Dong Zhongshu, c. 120 BC

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

—Galen, c. 175

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

—Voltaire, 1764

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

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

—Jane Austen, 1818

History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it.

—Theodor Adorno, c. 1946

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

—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BC

Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.

—Benjamin Franklin, c. 1732

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

—Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, 1858

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

—Xenocrates, c. 350 BC

Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.

—Charles Lamb, 1833

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. 

—Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840

It is a luxury to be understood.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1831