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Quotes

My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.

—Karl Kraus, c. 1910

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.

—Robert Burton, 1621

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

—Winston Churchill, 1943

Making 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, 1962

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

—Dong Zhongshu, c. 120 BC

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.

—John Camden Hotten, 1859

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

—Samuel Johnson, 1773

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

—Plato, c. 375 BC

Writing cannot express words fully; words cannot express thoughts fully.

—The Book of Changes, c. 350 BC

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1921

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.

—Jean Baudrillard, c. 1987

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, 1957

It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.

—Thomas Hardy, 1874