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.

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

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. 

A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.

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

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

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.

Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.

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.

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

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

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

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.