quotations about words
Articulate words are a harsh clamor and dissonance. When man arrives at his highest perfection, he will again be dumb! for I suppose he was dumb at the Creation, and must go round an entire circle in order to return to that blessed state.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
American Note-Books, April 1841
There are words which are worth as much as the best actions, for they contain the germ of them all.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
Wondrous depth of Thy words! whose surface, behold! is before us, inviting to little ones; yet are they a wondrous depth. O my God, a wondrous depth! It is awful to look therein; an awfulness of honor, and a trembling of love.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
To reason with poorly chosen words is like using a pair of scales with inaccurate weights.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
An Art of Living
Rigour and purity in assembling words, however simple the result, create a vacuum.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
Our generation throws a lot of slang around only to demand that other words be chosen with a pinpoint precision. Words today are both malleable as silly putty and hard as bricks.
ISABEL DRUKKER
"Sticks and stones", Campus Times, April 2, 2017
Oaths are but words, and words but wind.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Hudibras
The words. Why did they have to exist? Without them, there wouldn't be any of this.
MARKUS ZUSAK
The Book Thief
The sharpest sword is a word spoken in wrath.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
The Gospel of Buddha
The right word is always a power, and communicates its definiteness to our action.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
I make words up. It started when I had small children. I did it to make them laugh. I did it to keep them entertained. I did it because it was fun. And I did it to make them think and come up with words of their own!
DREXEL GILBERT
"The top 5 words you should never say at work", New York Daily News, March 5, 2017
A writer ... whittles at the words and phrases of today and makes of them forms to set the mind of tomorrow's generation.
JOHN DOS PASSOS
introduction, Three Soldiers
Wicked words are the prelude to wicked deeds.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
Pamela
Words mean things. When you put them together they speak. Yes, sometimes they flatten out and nothing they say is real, and that is one kind of magic. But sometimes a vision will rip up from them and shriek and clank wings clear as the sweat smudge on the paper under your thumb. And that is another kind.
SAMUEL R. DELANY
Equinox
Weigh words, don't count 'em.
KEN ALSTAD
Savvy Sayin's
Walk with me world, upon my right hand walk, speak to me Babel, that I may strive to assemble of all these syllables a single word before the purpose of speech is gone.
CONRAD AIKEN
"This Image or Another"
There are occasions when the simplest and fewest words surpass in effect all the wealth of rhetorical amplification.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES
The Principles of Success in Literature
There was a magic in the words. I suppose their power lay in their utter futility.
STELLA BENSON
I Pose
Don't gobblefunk around with words.
ROALD DAHL
The BFG
So powerful is the charm of words, which for us reduces to manageable entities all the passions that would otherwise madden and destroy us.
GENE WOLFE
The Shadow of the Torturer