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
Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.
ALEXANDER POPE
An Essay on Criticism
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
Words once sequenced into phrases were never done with but recycled themselves in perpetuity.
WILLIAM GAY
Provinces of Night
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
Though I do keep lists of words that catch my attention for a variety of reasons, they rarely make it into poems, not infrequently because I lose the lists.
WALTER BARGEN
"An Interview with Walter Bargen", BkMk Press
Words of the jargon sound as if they said something higher than what they mean.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Jargon of Authenticity
As the bud a leaf, so at last the thought becomes a word.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
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
Words are powerful, especially when they become actions.
PETE WILSON
"Words are powerful, especially when they become actions", Brazil Times, March 5, 2017
Words are the least reliable purveyor of Truth.
NEALE DONALD WALSCH
Conversations with God
Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.
MAYA ANGELOU
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
MARK TWAIN
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
I know no other way out of what is both the maze of the eternal present and the prison of the self except with a string of words.
LEWIS H. LAPHAM
Harper's Magazine, November 2010
All knowledge which ends in words will die as quickly as it came to life.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
One cannot be too careful with words, they change their minds just as people do.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
Death with Interruptions
In the increasingly convincing darkness
The words become palpable, like a fruit
That is too beautiful to eat.
JOHN ASHBERY
Houseboat Poems
Words in the head are like voices underwater. They are distorted.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Words are the part of silence that can be spoken.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Stone Gods
I am spoken to not in words, which come to me quaint and veiled, but in signs, in conformations of face and hands, in postures of shoulders and feet, in nuances of tune and tone, in gaps and absences whose grammar has never been recorded.
J. M. COETZEE
In the Heart of the Country