WORDS QUOTES IV

quotations about words

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


When I was a girl my mother said
I chattered like a magpie
even in my sleep, as if I knew one day
the words would all be stopped,
wine corked up in a bottle.

MAGGIE BUTT

"I am the Sphinx"

Tags: Maggie Butt


Broadly speaking, short words are best, and the old words, when short, are best of all.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

speech on receiving the London Times Literary Award, November 2, 1949

Tags: Winston Churchill


Deeds not Words: I say so too!
And yet I find it somehow true,
A word may help a man in need,
To nobler act and braver deed.

HENRY VAN DYKE

"Facta non Verba"

Tags: Henry Van Dyke


Kind words don't wear out the tongue.

DANISH PROVERB


All of life in its complexity and beauty is forever minted in the gold of words.

YEVGENY ZAMYATIN

We

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Make friends with words. You can't give words a pat on the back, nor can you shake hands with words. But like an old friend, words can fill you with a nostalgia that's indescribably sweet.

SHUJI TERAYAMA

attributed, "VOX POPULI: Words are like friends that bring comfort and meaning to life", Vox Populi, January 27, 2016


You can attach connotations or anything you want to a word, but, at the end of the day, it still means the same thing.

RUTH MWANGOMO

"Words' gray area: Reappropriation", The Shorthorn, March 29, 2017


A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.

GASTON BACHELARD

The Poetics of Reverie: Childhood, Language, and the Cosmos

Tags: Gaston Bachelard


I love and reverence the Word, the bearer of the spirit, the tool and gleaming ploughshare of progress.

THOMAS MANN

The Magic Mountain


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

ELIE WIESEL

attributed, The Little Book of Romanian Wisdom

Tags: Elie Wiesel


Language is a symbolic resource and words are rarely neutral. Given the many possibilities for using language to define, trivialise or make people and groups invisible, it should come as no surprise that linguistic intervention as one way to help build more inclusive societies has a long history.

LIA LITOSSELITI

"Use gender-sensitive language or lose marks, university students told", The Guardian, April 2, 2017


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


Desires and words go hand in hand ... they are moved by the same intention to join together, to communicate, to establish bridges between people, whether they are spoken or written.

LAURA ESQUIVEL

Swift as Desire

Tags: Laura Esquivel


Contrary to what some people have tried to imply, the meaning of a word can be, to a great extent, a subjective experience. After all, words are really just ideas. Those ideas are layered in experiences unique to each individual's perspective. That means that we may not be using our terms in the same exact manner as we might think others are. If that isn't bad enough, those unique ideas might, or might not be rooted in fact. These things should force us to reflect on the thought that perhaps even the few words we do use are not as well defined or universal as some would have us believe.

DAVID BUCIENSKI

"How much do words really matter?", Southgate News Herald, March 9, 2017


Words carried weight, some more than others, and it seemed to him that once you'd arranged them into phrases they stayed that way like bricks you'd laid in a wall and went on meaning what they said no matter what happened.

WILLIAM GAY

Provinces of Night

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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

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Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.

AESCHYLUS

Prometheus Bound

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A good word costs as little as a bad one, and is worth more.

BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE

Moral and Religious Aphorisms

Tags: Benjamin Whichcote


Words which enlighten some darken others.

EDWARD COUNSEL

Maxims