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.

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

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

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

Language is the armory of the human mind and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests. 

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

Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.

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

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

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.

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.

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