WORDS QUOTES V

quotations about words

The words we speak have such power, and we have the power to choose them wisely.

BARBARA WALSH

"Choosing our words wisely for encouragement", Deming Headlight, January 28, 2016


There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words.

THOMAS REID

Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man

Tags: Thomas Reid


What so wild as words are?

ROBERT BROWNING

A Woman's Last Word

Tags: Robert Browning


When you doubt between two words, choose the plainest, the commonest, the most idiomatic. Eschew fine words as you would rouge: love simple ones, as you would native roses on your cheeks.

JULIUS CHARLES HARE

Guesses at Truth


Words are a pretty fuzzy substitute for mathematical equations.

ISAAC ASIMOV

Foundation and Empire

Tags: Isaac Asimov


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

Tags: Henry Ward Beecher


Words are the least reliable purveyor of Truth.

NEALE DONALD WALSCH

Conversations with God

Tags: Neale Donald Walsch


Words can carry any burden we wish. All that's required is agreement and a tradition upon which to build.

FRANK HERBERT

God Emperor of Dune


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

Tags: William Gay


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

JEANETTE WINTERSON

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Tags: Jeanette Winterson


Words were too clumsy, sometimes; treacherous, too, always trying to twist around and mean something slightly different.

K. J. PARKER

Evil for Evil


You know, without my telling you, how sometimes a word or name eludes you, and you seek it through running ghosts of shadow -- leaping at it, lying in wait for it to spring upon it, spreading faint snares for it of sense or sound: until, of a sudden, as if in a phantom forest, you hear it, see it flash among the branches, and scarcely knowing how, suddenly have it.

CONRAD AIKEN

The House of Dust

Tags: Conrad Aiken


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


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

YEVGENY ZAMYATIN

We

Tags: Yevgeny Zamyatin


Behind every word a whole world is hidden that must be imagined. Actually, every word has a great burden of memories, not only just of one person but of all mankind. Take a word such as bread, or war; take a word such as chair, or bed or Heaven. Behind every word is a whole world. I'm afraid that most people use words as something to throw away without sensing the burden that lies in a word.

HEINRICH BÖLL

The Paris Review, spring 1983

Tags: Heinrich Böll


Flaubert's famous search for the "mot juste" was not a search for words that glow alone, but for words so precisely placed that in combination with other words, also precisely placed, they carve out a shape in space and time.

STANLEY FISH

How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One

Tags: Gustave Flaubert


I am increasingly afflicted by vertigo where words mean nothing.

DORIS LESSING

The Golden Notebook


Last words are only words.

CORMAC MCCARTHY

Suttree

Tags: Cormac McCarthy


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


Words are the only bullets in truth's bandolier. And poets are the snipers.

DAN SIMMONS

Hyperion

Tags: Dan Simmons