quotations about words
A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words.
EDMUND BURKE
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letter to Richard Burke
Of course, not everything is unsayable in words, only the living truth.
EUGENE IONESCO
Fragments of a Journal
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
The written word has this advantage, that it lasts and can await the time when it is allowed to take effect.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
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
Articulate words are a harsh clamor and dissonance. When man arrives at his highest perfection, he will again be dumb! for I suppose he was dumb at the Creation, and must go round an entire circle in order to return to that blessed state.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
American Note-Books, April 1841
Too many words cheapened the value of a man's speech.
PATRICIA BRIGGS
Raven's Shadow
We allow words to obscure the interpretation of the deeper meaning.
STEPHEN YOUNG
preface, Micro Messaging: Why Great Leadership is Beyond Words
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 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"
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
You take many words to say simple things.
LILLIAN HELLMAN
The Autumn Garden
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
Words never can express the whole that we feel: they give but an outline.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
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