WORDS QUOTES X

quotations about words

The written word has this advantage, that it lasts and can await the time when it is allowed to take effect.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe

Tags: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Truly speech has wonderful strength and power, that through a mere word, proceeding out of the mouth of a poor human creature, the devil, that so proud and powerful spirit, should be driven away, shamed and confounded.

MARTIN LUTHER

"Of God's Word", Table Talk

Tags: Martin Luther


"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." The adage is true as long as you don't really believe the words. But if your whole upbringing, and everything you have ever been told by parents, teachers and priests, has led you to believe, really believe, utterly and completely, that sinners burn in hell (or some other obnoxious article of doctrine such as that a woman is the property of her husband), it is entirely plausible that words could have a more long-lasting and damaging effect than deeds.

RICHARD DAWKINS

The God Delusion

Tags: Richard Dawkins


A man does not die for words. He dies for his relation to them.

ROBERT PENN WARREN

A Place To Come To

Tags: Robert Penn Warren


Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair; they can transfer knowledge from teacher to student; words enable the orator to sway his audience and dictate its decisions. Words are capable of arousing the strongest emotions and prompting all men's actions.

SIGMUND FREUD

attributed, The Educator's Book of Quotes

Tags: Sigmund Freud


Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.

GEORGE ELIOT

The Spanish Gypsy


Words are mere sound and smoke, dimming the heavenly light.

GOETHE

Faust

Tags: Goethe


A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion.

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

Culture and Value

Tags: Ludwig Wittgenstein


Word is murder of a thing, not only in the elementary sense of implying its absence -- by naming a thing, we treat it as absent, as dead, although it is still present -- but above all in the sense of its radical dissection: the word "quarters" the thing, it tears it out of the embedment in its concrete context, it treats its component parts as entities with an autonomous existence: we speak about color, form, shape, etc., as if they possessed self-sufficient being.

SLAVOJ ZIZEK

Enjoy Your Symptom!: Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out

Tags: Slavoj Zizek


Why is it that words like these seem dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?

JAMES JOYCE

"The Dead", Dubliners

Tags: James Joyce


Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.

ELIE WIESEL

attributed, The Little Book of Romanian Wisdom

Tags: Elie Wiesel


Everyday your words are revealing what is in your heart. Think of it as "Soulchat."

DAN DELZELL

"Your Words Reveal Your Heart", Christian Post, April 1, 2017


What happens to a country when a leader's words are worthless, when their promises are toothless or utterly useless?

BRIAN STELTER

"CNN Drops The Hammer On Trump And Tells America That The President's Words Are Worthless", PoliticusUSA, March 26, 2017


When we think, our thoughts are in the form of words, so authorities must never be permitted to outlaw or edit our thinking by redefining or outlawing our words.

JONATHAN HOFFMAN

"Words are thoughts; protect them", Arizona Daily Star, March 11, 2017


As long as words a different sense will bear,
And each may be his own interpreter,
Our airy faith will no foundation find;
The word's a weathercock for every wind.

JOHN DRYDEN

The Hind and the Panther

Tags: John Dryden


All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

letter, April 9, 1945

Tags: Ernest Hemingway


The pressed oil of words can blaze up into music, into image, into the heart and mind's knowledge. The lit and shadowed places within us can be warmed.

JANE HIRSHFIELD

Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry

Tags: Jane Hirshfield


There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus


A definition is nothing else but an explication of the meaning of a word, by words whose meaning is already known. Hence it is evident that every word cannot be defined; for the definition must consist of words; and there could be no definition, if there were not words previously understood without definition.

THOMAS REID

Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man


When you write you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner's pick, a woodcarver's gouge, a surgeon's probe. You wield it and it digs a path you follow.

ANNIE DILLARD

The Writing Life