WORDS QUOTES III

quotations about words

Words can carry any burden we wish. All that's required is agreement and a tradition upon which to build.

FRANK HERBERT

God Emperor of Dune


Words are but the shining garments of Thought.

EDWIN LEIBFREED

"The Song of the Soul"

Tags: Edwin Leibfreed


Words which enlighten some darken others.

EDWARD COUNSEL

Maxims


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


Words like violence
Break the silence
Come crashing in
Into my little world

DEPECHE MODE

"Enjoy the Silence"


Last words are only words.

CORMAC MCCARTHY

Suttree

Tags: Cormac McCarthy


You know, without my telling you, how sometimes a word or name eludes you, and you seek it through running ghosts of shadow -- leaping at it, lying in wait for it to spring upon it, spreading faint snares for it of sense or sound: until, of a sudden, as if in a phantom forest, you hear it, see it flash among the branches, and scarcely knowing how, suddenly have it.

CONRAD AIKEN

The House of Dust

Tags: Conrad Aiken


Words are so last year.

BEANO

Twitter post, March 31, 2017


By words the mind is winged.

ARISTOPHANES

The Birds

Tags: Aristophanes


Words carried weight, some more than others, and it seemed to him that once you'd arranged them into phrases they stayed that way like bricks you'd laid in a wall and went on meaning what they said no matter what happened.

WILLIAM GAY

Provinces of Night

Tags: William Gay


Words once sequenced into phrases were never done with but recycled themselves in perpetuity.

WILLIAM GAY

Provinces of Night


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

Tags: Gustave Flaubert


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


I believe words have power. Words can build up your self-esteem or words can puff up your pride. Words can deceive you into wrong thinking or words can guide you to safety. Words can move you to compassion. Words can even heal. Your own words can defeat you since our mental self-talk is the software directing our life.

RON WOOD

"Words are weapons", Meridian Star, January 23, 2016


No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words.

ROGER ZELAZNY

Lord of Light

Tags: Roger Zelazny


Words don't tell you what people are thinking. Rarely do we use words to really tell. We use words to sell people or to convince people or to make them admire us. It's all disguise. It's all hidden -- a secret language.

ROBERT ALTMAN

Esquire, March 2004

Tags: Robert Altman


Words come in many varieties. They show actions and feelings; they demonstrate obtuse or abstract ideas or they express concrete notions. Often we divide words into simple words, everyday language, and complicated or complex words, and words that should express subtleties. Often we use words not to be clear but to obfuscate our intentions and hide our real meanings. These are the words that at first sound wonderful but upon examining, we come to realize that they are veils hiding truth and vehicles of confusion.

PETER TARLOW

"What words can really mean in life", The Eagle, February 6, 2016


Words are the least reliable purveyor of Truth.

NEALE DONALD WALSCH

Conversations with God

Tags: Neale Donald Walsch


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

Tags: Lewis H. Lapham


All knowledge which ends in words will die as quickly as it came to life.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

Thoughts on Art and Life

Tags: Leonardo da Vinci