Quotes About Meaning

Can you imagine if it was like that: everything you're doing as you grow up you're wondering, 'What is that going to mean if I ever end up being a politician?' You wouldn't have anybody except ruthlessly ambitious automatons going into politics.

Understanding why we are here, what we are supposed to be doing, relationships, and striving to do more other than play football - when you get understanding like that and apply it, it works wonders.

A word is an arbitrary label - that's the foundation of linguistics. But many people think otherwise. They believe in word magic: that uttering a spell, incantation, curse, or prayer can change the world. Don't snicker: Would you ever say, 'Nothing has gone wrong yet' without looking for wood to knock?

A piece of sculpture has to be more than a block of wood.

Arca means 'box' or 'wooden' in very old Spanish. It's a ceremonial container where you store jewelry or valuables, an empty space that can become pregnant with whatever music or meaning I give to it.

Woody Allen's sense of humour has always attracted me, and I love the way he can make life so meaningful and yet show us what a farce it can be at the same time.

Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.

'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.'

Every creature is a word of God.

I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.

It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

The closer the look one takes at a word, the greater distance from which it looks back.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - 'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

People have been told so often that resurrection is just a metaphor, and means Jesus died and was glorified - in other words, he went to Heaven, whatever that means. And they've never realized that the word 'resurrection' simply didn't mean that.

The word 'God' usually signifies 'Lord', but every lord is not a God. It is the dominion of a spiritual being which constitutes a God: a true, supreme, or imaginary dominion makes a true, supreme, or imaginary God.

I don't follow anything blindly. I have to know the entire thing, if I have to get in to it. It might sound funny to you, but it's like using English language. I use an English word only when I know its meaning and understand its connotation. You won't hear me say, 'What's up, dude' or anything like that just for the heck of it.

According to scholars of linguistics, the relation between a word and its meaning is arbitrary.

Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism.

It basically comes down to that word: Love. I guess that's what it's all about.

I think the word 'progressive' is a very devious term. It was created as a substitute for 'communist.' What they propose is the reverse of progress.

Freedom is just another word: It seems to get truer the older I get.

Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?

Love has an enormous number of connotations, and if somebody is a person who does kind acts as a way of life, if they are generally disposed to being caring and loving and doing things for other people, then kindness is a much stronger word than we make it out to be.

There is no word more generally misinterpreted than the word egoism, in its modern sense.