quotations about words
Truly speech has wonderful strength and power, that through a mere word, proceeding out of the mouth of a poor human creature, the devil, that so proud and powerful spirit, should be driven away, shamed and confounded.
MARTIN LUTHER
"Of God's Word", Table Talk
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
The proof of battle is action, proof of words, debate.
HOMER
The Iliad
I was struck by the way in which meanings are historically attached to words: it is so accidental, so remote, so twisted. A word is like a schoolgirl's room--a complete mess--so the great thing is to make out a way of seeing it all as ordered, as right, as inferred and following.
WILLIAM H. GASS
The Paris Review, summer 1977
Just pick words and put one of them after the other like a baby learning to walk, like a drunk carefully crossing the street.
WILLIAM GAY
Provinces of Night
Words were too clumsy, sometimes; treacherous, too, always trying to twist around and mean something slightly different.
K. J. PARKER
Evil for Evil
Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.
ALEXANDER POPE
An Essay on Criticism
By words the mind is winged.
ARISTOPHANES
The Birds
Deeds not Words: I say so too!
And yet I find it somehow true,
A word may help a man in need,
To nobler act and braver deed.
HENRY VAN DYKE
"Facta non Verba"
After all is said and done, more is said than done.
AESOP
Aesop's Fables
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
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
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
Flaubert's famous search for the "mot juste" was not a search for words that glow alone, but for words so precisely placed that in combination with other words, also precisely placed, they carve out a shape in space and time.
STANLEY FISH
How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One
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
Whether they are growls of anger, the laughter of happiness or cries of sadness, humans pay more attention when an emotion is expressed through vocalisations than we do when the same emotion is expressed in speech. It takes just one-tenth of a second for our brains to begin to recognise emotions conveyed by vocalisations, a study said. The researchers believe that the speed with which the brain 'tags' these vocalisations and the preference given to them compared to language, is due to the potentially crucial role that decoding vocal sounds has played in human survival.
EDITOR
"We are better at detecting laughter than words", Z News, January 19, 2016
Written words as well as spoken words are not always taken the way they are meant to be taken, so never hesitate to ask, "I am not sure what you mean by that?" Facial expressions and tone of voice play a large role in our understanding, but communication is the key to living in harmony with others.
ELIZABETH SCHADRACK
"Valley Voice: Common sense moves can ease societal woes", The Desert Sun, February 10, 2016
Words are so last year.
BEANO
Twitter post, March 31, 2017
Talk is never just words.
BERNARD BECKETT
Genesis