“They place great stress on the clarity of our language for expressing nuances and showing subtleties.”

It is very difficult to generalise. Everyone’s adventure is original.

People who do not speak our language very well do complain of feeling rebuffed by French people, who can sometimes be impatient, or even intolerant.

All the English speakers, or almost all, have difficulties with the gender of words.

The more English is heard in the world, the more gratifying it seems to speak French, and above all to know the culture of our country. They find a kind of French social grace in the language and culture.

French is a language that makes those who speak it both calm and dynamic.

The Germans and I no longer speak the same language.

The chief virtue that language can have is clarity.

The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.

The chief merit of language is clearness.

The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms.

I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.

I feel it is unnatural and immoral to try to teach science to children in a foreign language They will know facts, but they will miss the spirit.

Books are mute as far as sound is concerned. It follows that reading aloud is a combination of two distinct operations, of two ‘languages.’ It is something far more complex than speaking and reading taken separately by themselves.