quotations about words
Written, spoken or read I've always been amazed how one or two words could encourage someone to keep going. Or a devastating sentence could painfully break a person's heart. Even a simple written phrase could change someone's life forever.
HEIDI ALLEN
"Words Are Powerful -- My Journey With Words", Huffington Post, March 14, 2017
Written words as well as spoken words are not always taken the way they are meant to be taken, so never hesitate to ask, "I am not sure what you mean by that?" Facial expressions and tone of voice play a large role in our understanding, but communication is the key to living in harmony with others.
ELIZABETH SCHADRACK
"Valley Voice: Common sense moves can ease societal woes", The Desert Sun, February 10, 2016
Words [are] more beautiful than a found fall leaf.
WILLIAM H. GASS
A Temple of Texts
Words were too clumsy, sometimes; treacherous, too, always trying to twist around and mean something slightly different.
K. J. PARKER
Evil for Evil
Words were like objects, making the idea more solid -- less a poisonous gas and more a ... cube of crystallized thought.
DAN SIMMONS
Olympos
Words once sequenced into phrases were never done with but recycled themselves in perpetuity.
WILLIAM GAY
Provinces of Night
Words have not the color of the rose
Nor the beauty of the morn!
EDWIN CURRAN
"The Depths of Love"
Words don't tell you what people are thinking. Rarely do we use words to really tell. We use words to sell people or to convince people or to make them admire us. It's all disguise. It's all hidden -- a secret language.
ROBERT ALTMAN
Esquire, March 2004
Words don't just change meanings randomly -- rather, implications hanging over a word gradually become what the word means. SUN implies HEAT. In a language, one might talk about getting some 'sun' in the meaning of warming up. After a while, in that language the word SUN may actually mean nothing but HEAT, something that would happen step by step, under the radar.
JOHN H. MCWHORTER
"Not so lost in translation: How are words related?", The Christian Science Monitor, February 3, 2016
Words can only hurt you if you try to read them. Don't play their game!
BEN STILLER
Zoolander
Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.
AESCHYLUS
Prometheus Bound
Words are the only bullets in truth's bandolier. And poets are the snipers.
DAN SIMMONS
Hyperion
Words are sometimes signs of ideas; sometimes of the want of them.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Words are powerful. They have the ability to build someone up or tear him down. And that someone includes you too. The words you say to yourself can either motivate you toward your goals, seriously hinder or stall your progress, or prevent you from even starting on your journey.
RACHEL GRICE
"7 Words to Stop Saying Right Now", Yahoo Health, January 24, 2016
Words are not necessary to one's experience of the true life.
DON DELILLO
Point Omega
Words are mere sound and smoke, dimming the heavenly light.
GOETHE
Faust
Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.
ALEXANDER POPE
An Essay on Criticism
Words are but the bannerets of a great army, a few bits of waving color here and there; thoughts are the main body of the footman that march unseen below.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Words are a pretty fuzzy substitute for mathematical equations.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation and Empire
When you doubt between two words, choose the plainest, the commonest, the most idiomatic. Eschew fine words as you would rouge: love simple ones, as you would native roses on your cheeks.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE
Guesses at Truth