“Letters are signs of things, symbols of words, whose power is so great that without a voice they speak to us the words of the absent; for they introduce words by the eye, not by the ear.”

— Isidore of Seville , book Etymologiae

Bk. 1, ch. 3, sect. 1; p. 96.
Etymologiae

Original

Litterae autem sunt indices rerum, signa verborum, quibus tanta vis est, ut nobis dicta absentium sine voce loquantur. Verba enim per oculos non per aures introducunt.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 3, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Letters are signs of things, symbols of words, whose power is so great that without a voice they speak to us the words …" by Isidore of Seville?

Isidore of Seville photo

Isidore of Seville 3

bishop, confessor and doctor of the Catholic Church 560–636

Related quotes

“And he continued to travesty the truth, and I was impotent — the truth, that profound thing whose voice was in my ears, whose shadow was in my eyes, and whose taste was in my mouth.
Was I so utterly forsaken? Would no one speak the word I was in search of?”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVI

“There are words agreeable to the eye (in the same way there are words agreeable to the ear). By a fortunate combination of the letters that form them or by the harmony of these letters. For each letter has its shape.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

“I speak and speak, … but the listener retains only the words he is expecting. … It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.”

Marco Polo (1254–1324) Venetian explorer and merchant noted for travel to central and eastern Asia

Io parlo parlo ... ma chi m'ascolta ritiene solo le parole che aspetta. ... Chi comanda al racconto non è la voce: è l'orecchio.
Marco Polo to Kublai Khan, in Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities (1974), ch. 9
In fiction

“Signs are taken for wonders. “We would see a sign!”
The word within a word, unable to speak a word,
Swaddled with darkness.”

T.S. Eliot book Poems

"Gerontion"
Poems (1920)

“The symbol is the tool which gives man his power, and it is the same tool whether the symbols are images or words, mathematical signs or mesons.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

"The Reach of Imagination" (1967)

“The discipline of poetry may be expected first to teach the evocative power of words, to introduce the student, if we may so put it, to the mighty power of symbolism, and then to show him that there are ways of feeling about things which are not provincial either in space or time.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

“The Power of the Word,” pp. 52-53.
Language is Sermonic (1970)

“Hear the voice of the Bard,
Who present, past, and future, sees;
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walked among the ancient trees.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Introduction, st. 1
1790s, Songs of Experience (1794)

“Be Impeccable with Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.”

Miguel Ángel Ruiz book The Four Agreements

The Four Agreements (1997)

“Words are life. Words are light. Words are power. Words are energy. Words are truth. Words can enliven and words can also kill. Words can give hope, or plunge us into despair. People use words to build peace, and use words to make war. Words can create walls between cultures, religions, and nations. And words can also build bridges. The existence of an individual, a family, a community, a country, and our planet is being led to good or to evil through the power of the words we speak. The words we speak are responsible for everything that happens in this world. We, therefore, must be responsible for the words we speak. On behalf of future generations, I hope that each of us will do all we can to speak only bright, light-filled words, so that one day, our descendants will be born into a world filled with light. There is no time to lose. Starting at this very moment, I hope all of us will take a close look at the words we have been using and make constant efforts to fill them with brightness.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14108295.alexis_karpouzos

“Every phenomenon of nature was a word, — the sign, symbol and pledge of a new, mysterious, inexpressible but all the more intimate union, participation and community of divine energies and ideas. Everything the human being heard from the beginning, saw with its eyes, looked upon and touched with its hands was a living word; for God was the word.”

Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788) German philosopher

Sämtliche Werken, ed. Josef Nadler (1949-1957), vol. III, p. 32.

Related topics