quotations about words
Twas a special gift of God that speech was given to mankind; for through the Word, and not by force, wisdom governs.
MARTIN LUTHER
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"Of God's Word", Table Talk
A word makes thy fortune sometimes.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Talking, talking, spinning a spell, pale skin of words that closes me in like a coffin.
JOHN GARDNER
Grendel
As the bud a leaf, so at last the thought becomes a word.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
Words are soldiers of fortune
Hired by different ideas.
MAXWELL BODENHEIM
"Impulsive Dialogue"
Words are but the shining garments of Thought.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"The Song of the Soul"
The same words
come from each mouth
differently.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"Fifteen Pebbles"
I sit and say nothing for fear
My words will turn to stone
And though they are sincere,
They will become a prison of their own.
GARRISON KEILLOR
Pilgrims
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
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
Words are coded and loaded with underlying meanings until they're too heavy to use in casual conversation.
ISABEL DRUKKER
"Sticks and stones", Campus Times, April 2, 2017
Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly -- they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
Brave New World
I must make a choice every time I speak a sentence in English. I try to choose the happier way of saying things, so that my own words will not weigh me down like stones.
TAD WILLIAMS
Otherland: City of Golden Shadow
Our words are, as a general rule, filled by the people to whom we address them with a meaning which those people derive from their own substance, a meaning widely different from that which we had put into the same words when we uttered them.
MARCEL PROUST
Within a Budding Grove
When the first emperor wanted to unify the country, one of the major policies was to create one system of written signs. By force, brutal force, he eliminated all the other scripts. One script became the official script. All the others were banned. And those who used other scripts were punished severely. And then the meanings of all the characters, over the centuries, had to be kept uniform as a part of the political apparatus. So from the very beginning the written word was a powerful political tool.
HA JIN
The Paris Review, winter 2009
God's linguistic being is the word. All human language is only reflection of the word in name. Name is no closer to the word than knowledge to creation. The infinity of all human language always remains limited and analytical in nature in comparison to the absolutely unlimited and creative infinity of the divine word.
WALTER BENJAMIN
Reflections
How charming it is that there are words and sounds: are not words and sounds rainbows and illusive bridges between things eternally separated?
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Words ... are little houses, each with its cellar and garret.
GASTON BACHELARD
The Poetics of Space
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." The adage is true as long as you don't really believe the words. But if your whole upbringing, and everything you have ever been told by parents, teachers and priests, has led you to believe, really believe, utterly and completely, that sinners burn in hell (or some other obnoxious article of doctrine such as that a woman is the property of her husband), it is entirely plausible that words could have a more long-lasting and damaging effect than deeds.
RICHARD DAWKINS
The God Delusion
The poet cannot invent new words every time, of course. He uses the words of the tribe. But the handling of the word, the accent, a new articulation, renew them.
EUGENE IONESCO
Present Past / Past Present