quotations about words
Kind words don't wear out the tongue.
DANISH PROVERB
Words are the least reliable purveyor of Truth.
NEALE DONALD WALSCH
Conversations with God
As the bud a leaf, so at last the thought becomes a word.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
Words are sometimes signs of ideas; sometimes of the want of them.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
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
No man weighs his words who has but a moment to live.
PHILIP MOELLER
Helena's Husband
Words are the only bullets in truth's bandolier. And poets are the snipers.
DAN SIMMONS
Hyperion
Words of the jargon sound as if they said something higher than what they mean.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Jargon of Authenticity
Prowling the meanings of a word, prowling the history of a person, no use expecting a flood of light. Human words have no main switch. But all those little kidnaps in the dark. And then the luminous, big, shivering, discandied, unrepentant, barking web of them that hangs in your mind when you turn back to the page you were trying to translate...
ANNE CARSON
Nox
Words in the head are like voices underwater. They are distorted.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Today it is even more important to acknowledge that words should matter and are very important. That importance, however, stems from them being the only game in town. That is, they are, for most of us, the only tool we have to communicate. While this is true I must also say that today no one should worship words, because on close inspection they do not hold up to scrutiny.
DAVID BUCIENSKI
"How much do words really matter?", Southgate News Herald, March 9, 2017
Through words we come to know the other person--and to be known. This knowing is at the heart of our deepest longings for intimacy and connection with others. How relationships unfold with the most important people in our lives depends on courage and clarity in finding voice.
HARRIET LERNER
The Dance of Connection
Behind every word a whole world is hidden that must be imagined. Actually, every word has a great burden of memories, not only just of one person but of all mankind. Take a word such as bread, or war; take a word such as chair, or bed or Heaven. Behind every word is a whole world. I'm afraid that most people use words as something to throw away without sensing the burden that lies in a word.
HEINRICH BÖLL
The Paris Review, spring 1983
You can attach connotations or anything you want to a word, but, at the end of the day, it still means the same thing.
RUTH MWANGOMO
"Words' gray area: Reappropriation", The Shorthorn, March 29, 2017
Words can only hurt you if you try to read them. Don't play their game!
BEN STILLER
Zoolander
Words have not the color of the rose
Nor the beauty of the morn!
EDWIN CURRAN
"The Depths of Love"
One cannot be too careful with words, they change their minds just as people do.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
Death with Interruptions
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 are soldiers of fortune
Hired by different ideas.
MAXWELL BODENHEIM
"Impulsive Dialogue"
Broadly speaking, short words are best, and the old words, when short, are best of all.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
speech on receiving the London Times Literary Award, November 2, 1949