WORDS QUOTES VI

quotations about words


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Words can only hurt you if you try to read them. Don't play their game!

BEN STILLER
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Zoolander


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In silence you can't hide anything ... as you can in words.

AUGUST STRINDBERG

The Ghost Sonata

Tags: August Strindberg


By words the mind is winged.

ARISTOPHANES

The Birds

Tags: Aristophanes


There are times when people aren't able to acknowledge or interpret an action but words are definite.

ANGIE JURGENS

"The power of words, through the eyes of a writer", Journal Star, January 30, 2016


There are some things for which three words are three too many, and three thousand words that many words too less.

WILLIAM FAULKNER

Absalom, Absalom!

Tags: William Faulkner


Avoid, which many grave men have not done, words taken from sacred subjects and from elevated poetry: these we have seen vilely prostituted. Avoid too the society of the barbarians who misemploy them.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

"Barrow and Newton", Dialogues of Literary Men

Tags: Walter Savage Landor


Though I do keep lists of words that catch my attention for a variety of reasons, they rarely make it into poems, not infrequently because I lose the lists.

WALTER BARGEN

"An Interview with Walter Bargen", BkMk Press

Tags: Walter Bargen


Sometimes you want to say things, and you're missing an idea to make them with, and missing a word to make the idea with. In the beginning was the word. That's how somebody tried to explain it once. Until something is named, it doesn't exist.

SAMUEL R. DELANY

Babel-17

Tags: Samuel R. Delany


No man weighs his words who has but a moment to live.

PHILIP MOELLER

Helena's Husband

Tags: Philip Moeller


Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.

MARK TWAIN

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Tags: Mark Twain


In our world, words seem to flow in endless disharmony. Words are often misused in ways that do an injustice to truth. We are exposed to endless words in print, social media and everyday speaking that do not build a framework of goodness, honesty and truth. We experience words that alarm, serve people's own selfish needs, are untruthful, controlling, or seek to appeal in ways that do not speak the truth in love. When the power of self-interest replaces truth, we are headed in the direction of chaos.

LARRY ROREM

"Choosing our words truthfully", Juneau Empire, March 26, 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


If the word is not dead when it reaches the hearer, he murders it at once by a contradiction, a stipulation, a condition, a digression, an interruption, and all the thousand tricks of conversation.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe


Words in the head are like voices underwater. They are distorted.

JEANETTE WINTERSON

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Tags: Jeanette Winterson


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


I shall repeat a hundred times; we really ought to free ourselves from the seduction of words!

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

Beyond Good and Evil

Tags: Friedrich Nietzsche


It's tremendously hard work. Yes, I love arranging the words and having them fall on the ear the right way and you know you're not quite there and you're redoing it and redoing it and there's a wonderful thrill to it. But it is hard.

ELIZABETH STROUT

Newsweek, July 13, 2009

Tags: Elizabeth Strout


Whether they are growls of anger, the laughter of happiness or cries of sadness, humans pay more attention when an emotion is expressed through vocalisations than we do when the same emotion is expressed in speech. It takes just one-tenth of a second for our brains to begin to recognise emotions conveyed by vocalisations, a study said. The researchers believe that the speed with which the brain 'tags' these vocalisations and the preference given to them compared to language, is due to the potentially crucial role that decoding vocal sounds has played in human survival.

EDITOR

"We are better at detecting laughter than words", Z News, January 19, 2016


You must assume that your words are going to be repeated, misunderstood, or exaggerated by the person you "shared" with.

DREXEL GILBERT

"The top 5 words you should never say at work", New York Daily News, March 5, 2017


Words were like objects, making the idea more solid -- less a poisonous gas and more a ... cube of crystallized thought.

DAN SIMMONS

Olympos

Tags: Dan Simmons