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

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

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

Every 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.

Anyone who doesn’t know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.

It is impossible to translate the poets. Can you translate music?

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.

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

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.

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

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?

Man is the one name belonging to every nation upon earth: there is one soul and many tongues, one spirit and various sounds; every country has its own speech, but the subjects of speech are common to all.