I live by good soup, and not on fine language.

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.

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

Language is the house of being. In its home human beings dwell. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of this home.

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

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

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

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

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.

Words pay no debts.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

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.