Language is the archives of history.

Under all speech that is good for anything, there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as eternity; speech is shallow as time.

Methinks the human method of expression by sound of tongue is very elementary and ought to be substituted for some ingenious invention which should be able to give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once.

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands, and goes to work.

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.

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.

Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.

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

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

Information can tell us everything. It has all the answers. But they are answers to questions we have not asked, and which doubtless don’t even arise.

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

Slang is as old as speech and the congregating together of people in cities. It is the result of crowding and excitement and artificial life.

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