quotations about words
The words we speak have such power, and we have the power to choose them wisely.
BARBARA WALSH
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"Choosing our words wisely for encouragement", Deming Headlight, January 28, 2016
Of what use are good words to an evil heart?
LOUIS BECKE
"Solepa", By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore and Other Stories
He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
What so wild as words are?
ROBERT BROWNING
A Woman's Last Word
Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
MARK TWAIN
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
What lives in words is what words were needed to learn.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"To Speech"
Words have not the color of the rose
Nor the beauty of the morn!
EDWIN CURRAN
"The Depths of Love"
Whether they are growls of anger, the laughter of happiness or cries of sadness, humans pay more attention when an emotion is expressed through vocalisations than we do when the same emotion is expressed in speech. It takes just one-tenth of a second for our brains to begin to recognise emotions conveyed by vocalisations, a study said. The researchers believe that the speed with which the brain 'tags' these vocalisations and the preference given to them compared to language, is due to the potentially crucial role that decoding vocal sounds has played in human survival.
EDITOR
"We are better at detecting laughter than words", Z News, January 19, 2016
First words are critical. Just ask any novelist or screenplay writer.
RICK BROWN
"The first words you need to hear", Your Houston News, January 13, 2016
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 part of silence that can be spoken.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Stone Gods
I suppose that people, using themselves and each other so much by words, are at least consistent in attributing wisdom to a still tongue.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
The Sound and the Fury
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
If we use common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking, because they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like old banners, or everyday clothes, hung up in a sacred place.
GEORGE ELIOT
The Mill on the Floss
Always having to have the last word is a bad trait. Pisses people off.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
The Lunatic Cafe
Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.
ELIE WIESEL
attributed, The Little Book of Romanian Wisdom
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
Language is a symbolic resource and words are rarely neutral. Given the many possibilities for using language to define, trivialise or make people and groups invisible, it should come as no surprise that linguistic intervention as one way to help build more inclusive societies has a long history.
LIA LITOSSELITI
"Use gender-sensitive language or lose marks, university students told", The Guardian, April 2, 2017
No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.
HENRY ADAMS
The Education of Henry Adams
Words come in many varieties. They show actions and feelings; they demonstrate obtuse or abstract ideas or they express concrete notions. Often we divide words into simple words, everyday language, and complicated or complex words, and words that should express subtleties. Often we use words not to be clear but to obfuscate our intentions and hide our real meanings. These are the words that at first sound wonderful but upon examining, we come to realize that they are veils hiding truth and vehicles of confusion.
PETER TARLOW
"What words can really mean in life", The Eagle, February 6, 2016