quotations about words
Words -- so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
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The American Notebooks, 1848
And the words slide into the slots ordained by syntax, and glitter as with atmospheric dust with those impurities which we call meaning.
ANTHONY BURGESS
Enderby Outside
As a free people, we must respect those who speak honestly and forthrightly and be suspect of those who would torture the language, and otherwise misrepresent facts. Words are thoughts; protect them.
JONATHAN HOFFMAN
"Words are thoughts; protect them", Arizona Daily Star, March 11, 2017
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
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.
GEORGE ORWELL
The Lion and the Unicorn
How truly language must be regarded as a hindrance to thought, though the necessary instrument of it, we shall clearly perceive on remembering the comparative force with which simple ideas are communicated by signs. To say, "Leave the room," is less expressive than to point to the door. Place a finger on the lips is more forcible than whispering, "Do not speak." A beck of the hand is better than, "Come here." No phrase can convey the idea of surprise so vividly as opening the eyes and raising the eyebrows. A shrug of the shoulders would lose much by translation into words.
HERBERT SPENCER
The Philosophy of Style
The proof of words are sometimes the effect of them on others; words are not proofs without effect.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
We allow words to obscure the interpretation of the deeper meaning.
STEPHEN YOUNG
preface, Micro Messaging: Why Great Leadership is Beyond Words
To reason with poorly chosen words is like using a pair of scales with inaccurate weights.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
An Art of Living
Words never can express the whole that we feel: they give but an outline.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
The word was -- civilization!
THOMAS MANN
The Magic Mountain
You can stroke people with words.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Notebooks
You will hear words
old and spent and useless
like costumes left over
from yesterday's parties.
CESARE PAVESE
"The Cats Will Know"
You take many words to say simple things.
LILLIAN HELLMAN
The Autumn Garden
The words fell as the axe of a skillful woodman falls at the root of a young tree and brings it down at a single blow.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
The words. Why did they have to exist? Without them, there wouldn't be any of this.
MARKUS ZUSAK
The Book Thief
There was a magic in the words. I suppose their power lay in their utter futility.
STELLA BENSON
I Pose
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
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
It seems that slang words are generated much more quickly in the Internet era, with memes pushing all sorts of words out into the world for quick consumption and even quicker disappearance. After a short space of time, these words are quickly replaced by a new wave of memes, and the cycle begins once again. But while I'm glad that slang words like "on fleek" and "bae" are slowly tapering out, I hope that phrases like "throwing shade" and "yas queen" stick around until I'm old and gray, so I can say them to children without sounding like an outdated relic. Because, you know, those are my priorities.
MEHAK ANWAR
"5 Slang Words That Will Never Go Out Of Style, Because It's Always Been Cool To Say 'Cool'", Bustle, February 10, 2016