quotations about words
Leave words to them whom words, not doings, move.
ARTHUR SYMONS
"Variations Upon Love"
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
Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
MARK TWAIN
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
In the increasingly convincing darkness
The words become palpable, like a fruit
That is too beautiful to eat.
JOHN ASHBERY
Houseboat Poems
The empirical usability of the sacred ceremonial words makes both the speaker and listener believe in their corporeal presence.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Jargon of Authenticity
The words of God are deeds.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
November
In silence you can't hide anything ... as you can in words.
AUGUST STRINDBERG
The Ghost Sonata
Not content with the million or so words they already have at their disposal, English speakers are adding new ones at the rate of around 1,000 a year. Recent dictionary debutants include blog, grok, crowdfunding, hackathon, airball, e-marketing, sudoku, twerk and Brexit.
ANDY BODLE
"How new words are born", The Guardian, February 4, 2016
I love and reverence the Word, the bearer of the spirit, the tool and gleaming ploughshare of progress.
THOMAS MANN
The Magic Mountain
It is the stillest words that bring the storm.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
What lives in words is what words were needed to learn.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"To Speech"
There have been countless nights now that I have sat at my computer staring at a blank screen, in hopes I could find some words to describe the feelings and thoughts that have been going through my head. Countless nights where I lay awake disappointed with the fact another night went by, and still I was stuck with nothing. I never really understood why kids in my classes over the years hated writing papers, but now I understand more than ever. Not being able to find the right words to describe the thoughts going through you head absolutely sucks.
SAM WAKITSCH
"I write because to me, words are beautiful", Chicago Now, January 25, 2016
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
The words that bore the deathless verse of Homer from bard to a group of fascinated hearers, and with whose fading sounds the poems passed beyond recall, are fixed on the printed page in a hundred tongues. They carry to a million eyes what once could reach but a hundred ears.
NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER
lecture at Columbia University, March 4, 1908
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
I shall repeat a hundred times; we really ought to free ourselves from the seduction of words!
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Beyond Good and Evil
The word; the forth-speaking of a thought, an idea, a truth, is the beginning of every new creation, or pulse of creation. It is the inauguration of every new order of things; it begins every new messianic reign, every coming of a better time. The darkness never comprehends it; but always, to as many as receive it, it gives power.
SAMUEL LONGFELLOW
Essays and Sermons
In the beginning was the Word. Then came the fucking word processor. Then came the thought processor. Then came the death of literature. And so it goes.
DAN SIMMONS
Hyperion