Quotes About Dictionary

in lexicography, as in other arts, naked science is too delicate for the purposes of life. The value of a work must be estimated by its use; it is not enough that a dictionary delights the critick, unless, at the same time, it instructs the learner; as it is to little purpose that an engine amuses the philosopher by the subtilty of its mechanism, if it requires so much knowledge in its application as to be of no advantage to the common workman.

The bank was a real bonanza, as far as lines and printed materials were concerned. They gave you a free dictionary. The dictionary didn't include "ratatouille" or "Tasmanian devil.

My job involves searching for 'lost' quotations - that is, trying to find out who came up with a quotable saying that lingers in someone's mind and which they wish to use for their own purpose and which they cannot find in conventional dictionaries of quotation.

Twitter is like overhearing people's conversations, which is exactly what dictionary editors have been wishing we could do for years.

So I looked up the word grief in the dictionary. And then I discovered the answer: grief (greef) n. When you feel so helpless and stupid that you think nothing will ever be right again, and your macaroni and cheese tastes like sawdust, and you can't even jerk off because it seems like too much trouble.

Gratitude is a useless word. You will find it in a dictionary but not in life.

Halt rolled his eyes. "Yes, there's a problem! You sound as if you swallowed a dictionary and then threw it up!

A great memory is never made synonymous with wisdom, any more than a dictionary would be called a treatise.

A great memory does not make a mind, any more than a dictionary is a piece of literature.

If we go on your iPhone and go to the dictionary and look up 'humble,' 80 per cent of the definition is negative. It's a controlling word. It's a way to control the masses and to control the sheep.

Nothing can astound an American. It has often been asserted that the word 'impossible' is not a French one. People have evidently been deceived by the dictionary. In America, all is easy, all is simple; and as for mechanical difficulties, they are overcome before they arise.

It's one thing looking up your own book in a library, but imagine being able to look up your own word in the dictionary.

The trouble with the dictionary is that you have to know how a word is spelled before you can look it up to see how it is spelled.

Language is ever on the move, and most days, I check out the 'Urban Dictionary' where anyone can invent a new and useful word or phrase.

I'm very sensitive to the English language. I studied the dictionary obsessively when I was a kid and collect old dictionaries. Words, I think, are very powerful and they convey an intention.

Often, I grow irritated before the first tile has been placed on the Scrabble board. This generally occurs when one of my opponents has insisted upon bringing a dictionary to the table, making it clear that he will be consulting it throughout the game.

Always remember that striving and struggle precede success, even in the dictionary.

The dictionary also invites a playful reading. It challenges anyone to sit down with it in an idle moment. There are worse ways to kill time.

But sometimes it is fun not knowing what the words mean because you can look them up in a dictionary...

One in a hundred people today suffer from schizophrenia: Nearly all of them, if treated with compassion and good chemistry, can have some kind of dignified life, of a kind that was denied, for much of his time, to Doctor Minor. Except, of course, that Minor had hid dictionary work.

Life is a thick dictionary, where you can find the meaning of anything.

Love is the most important thing in the world. Hate, we should remove from the dictionary.

If you will take the trouble to consult your dictionary, you will find that demons may be either good or bad, like any other class of beings.

Well, first of all, I'm an incredibly gullible person - I'm so bad that when I said that to someone, my friend said, 'You know, 'gullible' isn't even in the dictionary.' And I said, 'Really?' As I was saying 'Really?' I will acknowledge that I then realized what was happening, but that's how bad I am.