quotations about words
Not content with the million or so words they already have at their disposal, English speakers are adding new ones at the rate of around 1,000 a year. Recent dictionary debutants include blog, grok, crowdfunding, hackathon, airball, e-marketing, sudoku, twerk and Brexit.
ANDY BODLE
"How new words are born", The Guardian, February 4, 2016
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
A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.
EMILY DICKINSON
"A Word is Dead"
It is the stillest words that bring the storm.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
The same words
come from each mouth
differently.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"Fifteen Pebbles"
Talking, talking, spinning a spell, pale skin of words that closes me in like a coffin.
JOHN GARDNER
Grendel
If the word is not dead when it reaches the hearer, he murders it at once by a contradiction, a stipulation, a condition, a digression, an interruption, and all the thousand tricks of conversation.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
The word; the forth-speaking of a thought, an idea, a truth, is the beginning of every new creation, or pulse of creation. It is the inauguration of every new order of things; it begins every new messianic reign, every coming of a better time. The darkness never comprehends it; but always, to as many as receive it, it gives power.
SAMUEL LONGFELLOW
Essays and Sermons
I shall repeat a hundred times; we really ought to free ourselves from the seduction of words!
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Beyond Good and Evil
When we think, our thoughts are in the form of words, so authorities must never be permitted to outlaw or edit our thinking by redefining or outlawing our words.
JONATHAN HOFFMAN
"Words are thoughts; protect them", Arizona Daily Star, March 11, 2017
Why is it that words like these seem dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?
JAMES JOYCE
"The Dead", Dubliners
Even when we know things, sometimes it takes words to make them concrete.
GLEN COOK
Ceremony
A man does not die for words. He dies for his relation to them.
ROBERT PENN WARREN
A Place To Come To
The pressed oil of words can blaze up into music, into image, into the heart and mind's knowledge. The lit and shadowed places within us can be warmed.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry
Words were like objects, making the idea more solid -- less a poisonous gas and more a ... cube of crystallized thought.
DAN SIMMONS
Olympos
A word makes thy fortune sometimes.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
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
Words. Words. I play with words, hoping that some combination, even a chance combination, will say what I want.
DORIS LESSING
The Golden Notebook
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
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