Quotes about words

"Our great men have written words of wisdom to be used when hardship must be faced. Life obliges us with hardship so the words of wisdom shouldn't go to waste."

L'Chiam on words   

"Words can have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used."

Lehman, David on words   

"We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves."

Locke, John on words   

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"Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it."

Lowell, James Russell on words   

"Words can be like baseball bats when used maliciously."

Madwed, Sidney on words   

"The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr."

Mohammed on words
3 fans of this quote   

"The two most beautiful words in the English language are: Check Enclosed."

Parker, Dorothy on words
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"The safest words are always those which bring us most directly to facts."

Parkhurst, Charles H. on words   

"On a single winged word hath hung the destiny of nations."

Phillips, Wendell on words   

"Like an arrow to its mark flies the word good man's word."

Platen on words   

"In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker."

Plutarch on words   

"If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words."

Proverb, Chinese on words
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"A word from the mouth is like a stone from a sling."

Proverb, Spanish on words   

"A wise man hears one word and understands two."

Proverb, Yiddish on words
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"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things."

Quayle, Dan on words   

"A single word often betrays a great design."

Racine, Jean on words   

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

Reid, Thomas on words   

"Words are the coins making up the currency of sentences, and there are always too many small coins."

Renard, Jules on words   

"Words are the small change of thought."

Renard, Jules on words   

"Words do two major things: They provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness."

Rohn, Jim on words
3 fans of this quote   

"One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called weasel words. When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a weasel word after another there is nothing left of the other."

Roosevelt, Theodore on words   

"What you keep by you, you may change and mend but words, once spoken, can never be recalled."

Roscommon, Earl of on words   

"A man says what he knows, a woman says what will please."

Rousseau, Jean Jacques on words
3 fans of this quote   

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"To be brief is almost a condition of being inspired."

Santayana, George on words   

"Each group of words is processed by the brain as a single thought. And because the words are viewed in context, you retain them more accurately than if you processed the words individually."

Saperstein, Rose on words   

"Words are loaded pistols."

Sartre, Jean-Paul on words
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"A word too much always defeats its purpose."

Schopenhauer, Arthur on words   

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"It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds."

Shakespeare, William on words   

"Nothing can throw thee into the infernal abyss so much as this detested word -- heed well! -- this mine and thine."

Silesius, Angelus on words   

"It is with words as with sunbeams -- the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn."

Southey, Robert on words   

"How often misused words generate misleading thoughts."

Spencer, Herbert on words   

"Print is the sharpest and the strongest weapon of our party."

Stalin, Joseph on words   

"Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on words   

"The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement."

Thoreau, Henry David on words
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"Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall, but wise words endure."

Thorndike, Edward on words
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"The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary."

Tocqueville, Alexis De on words   

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug."

Twain, Mark on words
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"I don't give a damn for man that can spell a word only one way."

Twain, Mark on words   

"An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I've dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half... I never write metropolis for seven cents, because I can get the same money for city. I never write policeman, because I can get the same price for cop.... I never write valetudinarian at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn't do it for fifteen."

Twain, Mark on words   

"A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words... the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt."

Twain, Mark on words
4 fans of this quote