quotations about words
You gave yourself away, word by word, every time you opened your trap to speak.
DON DELILLO
Underworld
A laxity pervades the popular use of words.
CHARLES LAMB
"Table-Talk and Fragments of Criticism", The Life and Works of Charles Lamb
All our words from loose using have lost their edge.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
Death in the Afternoon
It by no means follows, that because two men utter the same words, they have precisely the same idea which they mean to express: language is inadequate to the variety of ideas which are conceived by different minds, and which, could they be expressed, would produce a new variety of characteristic differences between man and man.
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims, Characters, and Reflections
Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word?
THOMAS MANN
Freud and the Future
When you come to rely on the written word, it's time to light the fire with it.
K. J. PARKER
Evil for Evil
Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly -- they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
Brave New World
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." The adage is true as long as you don't really believe the words. But if your whole upbringing, and everything you have ever been told by parents, teachers and priests, has led you to believe, really believe, utterly and completely, that sinners burn in hell (or some other obnoxious article of doctrine such as that a woman is the property of her husband), it is entirely plausible that words could have a more long-lasting and damaging effect than deeds.
RICHARD DAWKINS
The God Delusion
A definition is nothing else but an explication of the meaning of a word, by words whose meaning is already known. Hence it is evident that every word cannot be defined; for the definition must consist of words; and there could be no definition, if there were not words previously understood without definition.
THOMAS REID
Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man
All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
letter, April 9, 1945
Shakespeare is often held up as a master neologist, because at least 500 words (including critic, swagger, lonely and hint) first appear in his works -- but we have no way of knowing whether he personally invented them or was just transcribing things he'd picked up elsewhere.
ANDY BODLE
"How new words are born", The Guardian, February 4, 2016
There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm
DEPECHE MODE
"Enjoy the Silence"
A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Culture and Value
A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.
GASTON BACHELARD
The Poetics of Reverie: Childhood, Language, and the Cosmos
Throughout the years my writing has taken on many styles. Whether it was to discover myself, de-clutter my mind, get over heartache or decipher the lessons I was supposed to learn. Good or bad, words have always been there for me.
HEIDI ALLEN
"Words Are Powerful -- My Journey With Words", Huffington Post, March 14, 2017
Words are coded and loaded with underlying meanings until they're too heavy to use in casual conversation.
ISABEL DRUKKER
"Sticks and stones", Campus Times, April 2, 2017
Words are such gross machinery, so primitive and ambiguous.
FRANK HERBERT
Dune Messiah
A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.
MARK TWAIN
"Essay on William Dean Howells"
Actions speak louder than words, because as much as I hate to admit it, words don't have to mean anything if you don't want them to. Lying is easy.
ISABEL DRUKKER
"Sticks and stones", Campus Times, April 2, 2017