Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands, and goes to work.
—Carl Sandburg, 1959Quotes
A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.
—Arthur Miller, 1961My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.
—Karl Kraus, c. 1910Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.
—Charles Lamb, 1833God never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make the message clear for them.
—The Qur’an, c. 620Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.
—George Orwell, 1944Every 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, 1780Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1915Writing cannot express words fully; words cannot express thoughts fully.
—The Book of Changes, c. 350 BCMaking 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, 1962The more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation.
—Plato, c. 375 BCAnyone who doesn’t know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1821The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms.
—Galen, c. 175