quotations about words
We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
Winston Churchill's Great Quotation Book: From Alamein to Zest for Life
If our words are kept under control, it shows that we have a lot of other things where they should be.
R. D. HOTTLE
"Anchor On ... Great Words of Life", Highland County Press, April 1, 2017
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 betrayed her: beautiful butterflies in her mind; dead moths when she opened her mouth for their release into the world.
GLEN DUNCAN
I, Lucifer
Everyday your words are revealing what is in your heart. Think of it as "Soulchat."
DAN DELZELL
"Your Words Reveal Your Heart", Christian Post, April 1, 2017
I write because words are beautiful when used correctly to describe thoughts and feelings. I write because when a topic or thought is important, the words just pour right onto the page as if that is where they were supposed to be.
SAM WAKITSCH
"I write because to me, words are beautiful", Chicago Now, January 25, 2016
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
When the first emperor wanted to unify the country, one of the major policies was to create one system of written signs. By force, brutal force, he eliminated all the other scripts. One script became the official script. All the others were banned. And those who used other scripts were punished severely. And then the meanings of all the characters, over the centuries, had to be kept uniform as a part of the political apparatus. So from the very beginning the written word was a powerful political tool.
HA JIN
The Paris Review, winter 2009
Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word?
THOMAS MANN
Freud and the Future
All our words from loose using have lost their edge.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
Death in the Afternoon
When you come to rely on the written word, it's time to light the fire with it.
K. J. PARKER
Evil for Evil
All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
letter, April 9, 1945
A word in season is most precious.
AESOP
"The Swan and the Goose", Aesop's Fables
Our sense that words are static things sitting in the dictionary with a meaning -- or even meanings -- that sit still is artificial. Rather, a word is a process, always on its way to becoming a different one.
JOHN H. MCWHORTER
"Not so lost in translation: How are words related?", The Christian Science Monitor, February 3, 2016
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
"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
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
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
The word is too weak. There is no word in the language strong enough to describe my feelings.
JACK LONDON
The Star Rover