Quotes About Words

Few things hold the perception more thoroughly captive than anxiety about what we have got to say

All choice of words is slang. It marks a class." "There is correct English: that is not slang." "I beg your pardon: correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays. And the strongest slang of all is the slang of poets.

Are you beginning to dislike slang, then?" said Rosamond with mild gravity. "Only the wrong sort. All choice of words is slang. It marks a class." "There is correct English; that is not slang." "I beg your pardon; correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays. And the strongest slang of all is the slang of poets.

was something very new and strange in his life that these few words of trust from a woman should be so much to him.

But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know.

It is so with emotional natures whose thoughts are no more than the fleeting shadows cast by feeling: to them words are facts, and even when known to be false, have a mastery over their smiles and tears.

What is meaningful are not the words, the mere sound sequences spoken or letter sequences on a page, but the conceptual content that the words evoke. Meanings are thus in people's minds, not in the words on the page.

When you think you just lack words, what you really lack are ideas. Ideas come in the form of frames. When the frames are there, the words come readily.

Repetition of such articulations is the key to redefining these words and reclaiming them. Progressives must say things like this when they speak to their friends, when they write letters to the editor, when they blog, when they run for office.

Because you basically won a close re-election, your first task is to unify the city. And it's done not with words but with actions, by reaching out, to the supporters of your opponent as well as to reassure your own supporters.

The fact that books today are mostly a string of words makes it easier to forget the text. With the impact of the iPad and the future of the book being up for re-imagination, I wonder whether we'll rediscover the importance of making texts richer visually.

Words and ideas work in the short run to get you through school and to impress educators and employers. But they do not work in the long run or in the deep run. We soon find ourselves separate and without wonder.

I used to be a great fan of doing crosswords. When you're fiddling around with anagrams, you get wonderful jumbles of syllables that become interesting.

To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.

Actually, the language in Shakespeare is wonderfully musical. You need to hear the music to connect with the words.

Even printed, on pages that are bound, sentences remain unsettled organisms. Years later, I can always reach out to smooth a stray hair. And yet, at a certain point, I must walk away, trusting them to do their work. I am left looking over my shoulder, wondering if I might have structured one more effectively.

Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.

A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.

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.

The spoken word is man's physician in grief. For this alone has soothing charms for the soul.

If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to blind, imprison, and destroy.

I can speak a little bit of Hindi but understand every word.

At ev'ry word a reputation dies.

My lad chewed and swallowed a dictionary. We gave him Epsom salts - but we can't get a word out of him.