Writing cannot express words fully; words cannot express thoughts fully.
—The Book of Changes, c. 350 BCQuotes
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.
—Albert Camus, 1957How 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.
—Søren Kierkegaard, 1843Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.
—Benjamin Franklin, c. 1732Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1915A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.
—Arthur Miller, 1961God never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make the message clear for them.
—The Qur’an, c. 620It is a luxury to be understood.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1831Anyone who doesn’t know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1821Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so is he.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BCThe more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation.
—Plato, c. 375 BCLanguage ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.
—George Orwell, 1944I live by good soup, and not on fine language.
—Molière, 1672