Words Quotes
We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.Words
Adams, Abigail
1744-1818 American Letter Writer
No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.
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Adams, Henry Brooks
1838-1918 American Historian
Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
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Adams, John
1735-1826 Second President of the USA
Words of love, are works of love.
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Alger, William R.
1822-1905 American Writer
When I was born I was so surprised I didn t talk for a year and a half.
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Allen, Gracie
1894-1956 American Actress
Nothing we use or hear or touch can be expressed in words that equal what we are given by the senses.
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Arendt, Hannah
1906-1975 German-born American Political Philosopher
By words the mind is winged.
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Aristophanes
BC 448-380 Greek Comic Poet Satirist
A synonym is a word you use when you can t spell the word you first thought of.
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Bacharach, Burt
1928 American Musician
I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the word begin to move around. Stressed accents begin to invert. The word abandons its meaning like an overload which is too heavy and prevents dreaming. Then words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young. And the words wander away, looking in the nooks and crannies of vocabulary for new company, bad company.
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Bachelard, Gaston
1884-1962 French Scientist Philosopher Literary Theorist
The words of the world want to make sentences.
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Bachelard, Gaston
1884-1962 French Scientist Philosopher Literary Theorist
Words are all we have.
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Beckett, Samuel
1906-1989 Irish Dramatist Novelist
All words are pegs to hang ideas on.
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Beecher, Henry Ward
1813-1887 American Preacher Orator Writer
Today the discredit of words is very great. Most of the time the media transmit lies. In the face of an intolerable world, words appear to change very little. State power has become congenitally deaf, which is why --but the editorialists forget it --terrorists are reduced to bombs and hijacking.
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Berger, John
1926 British Actor Critic
The wise weigh their words on a scale with gold.
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Bible
Sacred Scriptures of Christians and Judaism
There are words which sever hearts more than sharp swords; there are words the point of which sting the heart through the course of a whole life.
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Bremer, Frederika
1801-1865 Swedish Novelist Feminist Pacifist
Bu is a word that cools many a warm impulse, stifles many a kindly thought, puts a dead stop to many a brotherly deed. No one would ever love his neighbor as himself if he listened to all the Buts that could be said.
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Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.
1803-1873 British Novelist Poet
My general theory since 1971 has been that the word is literally a virus, and that it has not been recognized as such because it has achieved a state of relatively stable symbiosis with its human host; that is to say, the word virus (the Other Half) has established itself so firmly as an accepted part of the human organism that it can now sneer at gangster viruses like smallpox and turn them in to the Pasteur Institute.
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Burroughs, William S.
1914-1997 American Writer
A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.
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Burton, Robert
1576-1640 British Clergyman Scholar
Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbors, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them.
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Butler, Samuel
1612-1680 British Poet Satirist
But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew, upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
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Byron, Lord
1788-1824 British Poet
Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.
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Card, Orson Scott
American Author
You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world s happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.
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Carnegie, Dale
1888-1955 American Author Trainer
When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.
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Carroll, Lewis
1832-1898 British Writer Mathematician
Give the people a new word and they think they have a new fact.
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Cather, Willa
1876-1947 American Author
I find it difficult to believe that words have no meaning in themselves, hard as I try. Habits of a lifetime are not lightly thrown aside.
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Chase, Stuart
1888-1985 American Writer
Our expression and our words never coincide, which is why the animals don t understand us.
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Chazal, Malcolm De
1902-1981 French Writer
I have never developed indigestion from eating my words.
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Churchill, Winston
1874-1965 British Statesman Prime Minister
Eating words has never given me indigestion.
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Churchill, Winston
1874-1965 British Statesman Prime Minister
Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know men.
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Confucius
BC 551-479 Chinese Ethical Teacher Philosopher
Tsze-Kung asked, saying, is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one s life? The Master said, Is not Reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.
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Confucius
BC 551-479 Chinese Ethical Teacher Philosopher
Words today are like the shells and rope of seaweed which a child brings home glistening from the beach and which in an hour have lost their luster.
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Connolly, Cyril
1903-1974 British Critic
Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.
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Conrad, Joseph
1857-1924 Polish-born British Novelist
A word carries far -- very far -- deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space.
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Conrad, Joseph
1857-1924 Polish-born British Novelist
I have never been hurt by what I have not said.
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Coolidge, Calvin
1872-1933 Thirtieth President of the USA
Words are made for a certain exactness of thought, as tears are for a certain degree of pain. What is least distinct cannot be named; what is clearest is unutterable.
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Daumal, Rene
1908-1944 French Poet Critic
The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.
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Dick, Philip K.
1928-1982 American Science Fiction Writer
A word is dead when it is said. Some say. I say it just, begins to live that day.
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Dickinson, Emily
1830-1886 American Poet
I ve been asked to say a couple of words about my husband, Fang. How about short and cheap?
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Diller, Phyllis
1861-1951 American Columnist
Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.
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Eliot, George
1819-1880 British Novelist
For last year s words belong to last year s language and next year s words await another voice.
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Eliot, T. S.
1888-1965 American-born British Poet Critic
If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to blind, imprison, and destroy.
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Ellison, Ralph
1914-1994 American Writer
It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence, whether a man be behind it or no.
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Emerson, Ralph Waldo
1803-1882 American Poet Essayist
Words are alive; cut them and they bleed.
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Emerson, Ralph Waldo
1803-1882 American Poet Essayist
The finest words in the world are only vain sounds if you cannot understand them.
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France, Anatole
1844-1924 French Writer
Words represent your intellect. The sound, gesture and movement represent your feelings.
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Fripp, Patricia
British-Born American Author Speaker
Gentle words, quiet words, are after all the most powerful words. They are more convincing, more compelling, more prevailing.
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Gladden, W.
I haven t much opinion of words. They re apt to set fire to a dry tongue, that s what I say.
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Glasgow, Ellen
1874-1945 American Novelist
Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.
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Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von
1749-1832 German Poet Dramatist Novelist
Every spoken word arouses our self-will.
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Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von
1749-1832 German Poet Dramatist Novelist
When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
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Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von
1749-1832 German Poet Dramatist Novelist
There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one.
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Gracian, Baltasar
1601-1658 Spanish Philosopher Writer
Keep your words sweet -- you may have to eat them. I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
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Grellet, Stephan
In fact, words are well adapted for description and the arousing of emotion, but for many kinds of precise thought other symbols are much better.
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Haldane, John B. S.
1892-1964 British Scientist Author
We are getting into semantics again. If we use words, there is a very grave danger they will be misinterpreted.
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Haldeman, Harold Robbins
1926-1993 American Advertising Executive Government Official
There can be no doubt that distrust of words is less harmful than unwarranted trust in them. Besides, to distrust words, and indict them for the horrors that might slumber unobtrusively within them --isn t this, after all, the true vocation of the intellectual?
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Havel, Vaclav
1936 Czech Playwright President
Our lives are fed by kind words and gracious behavior. We are nourished by expressions like excuse me and other such simple courtesies... Rudeness, the absence of the sacrament of consideration, is but another mark that our time-is-money society is lacking in spirituality, if not also in its enjoyment of life.
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Hays, Ed
All my life I ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.
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Hemingway, Ernest
1898-1961 American Writer
All our words from loose using have lost their edge.
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Hemingway, Ernest
1898-1961 American Writer
Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.
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Hemingway, Ernest
1898-1961 American Writer
Words are wise men s counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools.
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Hobbes, Thomas
1588-1679 British Philosopher
Words are the money of fools.
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Hobbes, Thomas
1588-1679 British Philosopher
A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.
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Holmes, Oliver Wendell
1809-1894 American Author Wit Poet
Words will not fail when the matter is well considered.
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Horace
BC 65-8 Italian Poet
A word once uttered can never be recalled.
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Horace
BC 65-8 Italian Poet
Strong words are required for weak principles.
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Horton, Doug
Without words to objectify and categorize our sensations and place them in relation to one another, we cannot evolve a tradition of what is real in the world.
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Hubbard, Ruth
1924 American Biologist
Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs.
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Hurd, Pearl Strachan
Words from the thread on which we string our experiences.
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Huxley, Aldous
1894-1963 British Author
Words are tools which automatically carve concepts out of experience.
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Huxley, Julian S.
1877-1975 British Writer Biologist
A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.
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Ibsen, Henrik
1828-1906 Norwegian Dramatist
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours.
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Idle, Eric
As a poet and writer, I deeply love and I deeply hate words. I love the infinite evidence and change and requirements and possibilities of language; every human use of words that is joyful, or honest or new, because experience is new... But as a Black poet and writer, I hate words that cancel my name and my history and the freedom of my future: I hate the words that condemn and refuse the language of my people in America.
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Jordan, June
1939 American Poet Civil Rights Activist
Words are like eyeglasses they blur everything that they do not make clear.
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Joubert, Joseph
1754-1824 French Moralist
All words are part true and part false.
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Kahn, Master
Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on the unthinking.
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Keynes, John Maynard
1883-1946 British Economist
Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
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Kipling, Rudyard
1865-1936 British Author of Prose Verse
What do you call a boomerang that doesn t work? A stick!
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Kirchenbaum
The closer the look one takes at a word, the greater distance from which it looks back.
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Kraus, Karl
1874-1936 Austrian Satirist
Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good.
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Lao-Tzu
BC 600 Chinese Philosopher Founder of Taoism Author of the Tao Te Ching
He who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike dumb the loquacious, is a genius or a hero.
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Lavater, Johann Kaspar
1741-1801 Swiss Theologian Mystic
Our great men have written words of wisdom to be used when hardship must be faced. Life obliges us with hardship so the words of wisdom shouldn t go to waste.
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L'Chiam
Words can have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used.
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Lehman, David
1948 American Poet Editor Critic
We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.
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Locke, John
1632-1704 British Philosopher
Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.
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Lowell, James Russell
1819-1891 American Poet Critic Editor
Words can be like baseball bats when used maliciously.
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Madwed, Sidney
American Speaker Consultant Author Poet
The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.
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Mohammed
c570-c632 Meccan Spiritual Leader
The two most beautiful words in the English language are: Check Enclosed.
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Parker, Dorothy
1893-1967 American Humorous Writer
The safest words are always those which bring us most directly to facts.
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Parkhurst, Charles H.
1842-1933 American Clergyman Reformer
On a single winged word hath hung the destiny of nations.
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Phillips, Wendell
1811-1884 American Reformer Orator
Like an arrow to its mark flies the word good man s word.
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Platen
In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.
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Plutarch
46-120 AD Greek Essayist Biographer
If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.
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Proverb, Chinese
Sayings of Chinese Origin
A word from the mouth is like a stone from a sling.
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Proverb, Spanish
Sayings of Spanish Origin
A wise man hears one word and understands two.
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Proverb, Yiddish
Sayings of Yiddish Origin
Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.
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Quayle, Dan
1947 American Politician Vice-President
A single word often betrays a great design.
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Racine, Jean
1639-1699 French Dramatist
There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words.
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Reid, Thomas
1710-1769 Scottish Philosopher
Words are the coins making up the currency of sentences, and there are always too many small coins.
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Renard, Jules
1864-1910 French Author Dramatist
Words are the small change of thought.
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Renard, Jules
1864-1910 French Author Dramatist
Words do two major things: They provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness.
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Rohn, Jim
American Businessman Author Speaker Philosopher
One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called weasel words. When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a weasel word after another there is nothing left of the other.
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Roosevelt, Theodore
1858-1919 Twenty-sixth President of the USA
What you keep by you, you may change and mend but words, once spoken, can never be recalled.
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Roscommon, Earl of
A man says what he knows, a woman says what will please.
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Rousseau, Jean Jacques
1712-1778 Swiss Political Philosopher Educationist Essayist
To be brief is almost a condition of being inspired.
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Santayana, George
1863-1952 American Philosopher Poet
Each group of words is processed by the brain as a single thought. And because the words are viewed in context, you retain them more accurately than if you processed the words individually.
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Saperstein, Rose
Words are loaded pistols.
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Sartre, Jean-Paul
1905-1980 French Writer Philosopher
A word too much always defeats its purpose.
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Schopenhauer, Arthur
1788-1860 German Philosopher
It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.
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Shakespeare, William
1564-1616 British Poet Playwright Actor
Nothing can throw thee into the infernal abyss so much as this detested word -- heed well! -- this mine and thine.
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Silesius, Angelus
It is with words as with sunbeams -- the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.
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Southey, Robert
1774-1843 British Author
How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.
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Spencer, Herbert
1820-1903 British Philosopher
Print is the sharpest and the strongest weapon of our party.
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Stalin, Joseph
1879-1953 Georgian-born Soviet Leader
Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.
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Stevenson, Adlai E.
1900-1965 American Lawyer Politician
The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement.
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Thoreau, Henry David
1817-1862 American Essayist Poet Naturalist
Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall, but wise words endure.
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Thorndike, Edward
1874-1949 American Psychologist
The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.
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Tocqueville, Alexis De
1805-1859 French Social Philosopher
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.
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Twain, Mark
1835-1910 American Humorist Writer
I don t give a damn for man that can spell a word only one way.
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Twain, Mark
1835-1910 American Humorist Writer
An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I ve dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half... I never write metropolis for seven cents, because I can get the same money for city. I never write policeman, because I can get the same price for cop.... I never write valetudinarian at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn t do it for fifteen.
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Twain, Mark
1835-1910 American Humorist Writer
A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words... the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.
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Twain, Mark
1835-1910 American Humorist Writer
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
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Twain, Mark
1835-1910 American Humorist Writer
When I look at you, the wheels of time stand still vs. Your face could stop a clock
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Unknown, Source
The written word can be erased -- not so with the spoken word.
Words
Unknown, Source
When thoughts fails of words, they find imagination waiting at their elbow to teach a new language without words.
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Unknown, Source
Why do social workers use five-syllable words when dealing with juvenile delinquents?
Words
Unknown, Source
Words convey the mental treasures of one period to the generations that follow; and laden with this, their precious freight, they sail safely across gulfs of time in which empires have suffered shipwreck and the languages of common life have sunk into oblivion.
Words
Unknown, Source
You can stroke people with words.
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Unknown, Source
Good words are worth a thousand pictures.
Words
Unknown, Source
One thing you can give and still keep is your word.
Words
Unknown, Source
It is with a word as with an arrow -- once let it loose and it does not return.
Words
Unknown, Source
Please God, make my words today sweet and tender, for tomorrow I may have to eat them.
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Unknown, Source
Political correctness is simply a speed bump in the traffic of truth, free thought and speech.
Words
Unknown, Source
The 500 most commonly used words have an average of 28 meanings each.
Words
Unknown, Source
The supply of words in the world market is plentiful but the demand is falling. Let deeds follow words now.
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Walesa, Lech
1943 Polish Trade Union Leader Politician
Words are men s daughters, but God s sons are things.
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Walton, Izaak
1593-1683 British Writer
One forgets words as one forgets names. One s vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.
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Waugh, Evelyn
1903-1966 British Novelist
Language is not an abstract construction of the learned, or of dictionary makers, but is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground.
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Webster, Noah
1758-1843 American Lexicographer
Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.
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Wittgenstein, Ludwig
1889-1951 Austrian Philosopher
A new word is like a fresh seed sewn on the ground of the discussion.
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Wittgenstein, Ludwig
1889-1951 Austrian Philosopher
The word-coining genius, as if thought plunged into a sea of words and came up dripping.
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Woolf, Virginia
1882-1941 British Novelist Essayist
If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know?
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Wright, Steven
American Humorist
Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses.
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Yeats, William Butler
1865-1939 Irish Poet Playwright
There s no sentence that s too short in the eyes of God.
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Zinsser, William
American Author of On Writing Well