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But at the time when he wrote, Englishmen, with the rarest exceptions, wrote only in French or Latin; and when they began to write in English, a man of genius, to interpret and improve on him, was not found for a long time.

Nor ought a genius less than his that writ attempt translation.

Foreign languages are another favourite topic, and as these men are bilingual they have a fair notion of what it means to speak and think in many different idioms.

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.

The most advanced minds as well as the least advanced are obliged to use the same words. If we adopt new words, it will be even more difficult - if not impossible - to make ourselves understood. The new man must therefore express himself in conventional language.

He that knows himself, knows others; and he that is ignorant of himself, could not write a very profound lecture on other men's heads.

A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.

In other words, the man who is born into existence deals first with language; this is a given. He is even caught in it before his birth.

Speech happens to not be his language.

The novelist, he's not a philosopher, not a technician of spoken language. He's someone who writes, above all, and through the novel asks questions.