Quotes about wording
page 28

“Some people have a way with words, and other people… oh, uh, not have way.”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

“Sometimes it is better not to talk about art by using the word "art". If we just act with awareness and integrity, our art will flower, and we don't have to talk about it at all.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Art, Flowers

“But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either, which is infamous, or, which is imbecile.”

Patrick O'Brian book Master and Commander

Source: Master and Commander (1970)
Context: “But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile.”

“Put your soul in the palm of my hand for me to look at, like a crystal jewel. I'll sketch it in words…”

Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972) Japanese author, Nobel Prize winner

Soul

“Words. Borne on the ever swelling current of hatred, like flowers opening in the current, petals peeling back, then falling apart.”

Anne Rice book The Vampire Lestat

Source: The Vampire Lestat

Flowers

“Where is that man who has forgotten words that I may have a word with him?”

Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher

“Every word was once a poem.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“The shapes arranged themselves into words, and the words spelled out a delicious and wonderful phrase: Once upon a time.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Tale of Despereaux

Source: The Tale of Despereaux (2004)
Context: Despereaux looked down at the book, and something remarkable happened. The marks on the pages, the "squiggles" as Merlot referred to them, arranged themselves into shapes. The shapes arranged themselves into words, and the words spelled out a delicious and wonderful phrase: Once upon a time

Time

“How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.”

David Foster Wallace book The Pale King

Source: The Pale King (2011)

love

“I am simply of the opinion that you cannot be taught to write. You have to spend a lifetime in love with words.”

Craig Claiborne (1920–2000) Journalist and book author

Love

“People love talking, and I have never been a huge talker. I carry on an inner monologue, but the words often don't reach my lips.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Love, People

“Writing will be like a journey, every word a footstep that takes me further into undiscovered land.”

David Almond book My Name Is Mina

Source: My Name Is Mina

“Don't tell me anymore. You should have your dream, as the old woman told you to. I understand how you feel, but if you put those feelings into words they will turn into lies. (from Thailand)”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: After the Quake

Dreams, Feeling, Understanding

“TELL THE WORLD WHAT YOU INTEND TO DO, BUT FIRST SHOW IT. This is the equivalent of saying "deeds, and not words, are what count most.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

World

“I would never see her again, except in memory. She was here, and now she's gone. There is no middle ground. Probably is a word that you may find south of the border. But never, ever west of the sun.”

Haruki Murakami book South of the Border, West of the Sun

Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

Memory, Sun

“Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Essays: First Series

Source: Essays: First Series

Books, World, Housing

“I don't know what it means and I don't care because it's Shakespeare and it's like having jewels in my mouth when I say the words.”

Frank McCourt book Angela's Ashes

Source: Angela's Ashes (1996)

“If I could, I'd write a huge encyclopedia just about the words luck and coincidence”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

“My words are the garment of what I shall never be
Like the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy.”

W.S. Merwin (1927–2019) American poet

Source: The Lice

Boy

“These are the words I want on my gravestone: that I was a helper, and that I danced.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Dance

“Everyone knows you can't see death cooties. Take my word for it, that couch has the biggest, fattest death cooties that ever existed. That couch has the mother of all death cooties. – Lula”

Janet Evanovich (1943) Novelist

Death

“In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

“Nothing unites two people so completely, especially if, like you and me, all they have is words.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Felice

Source: Letters to Felice‎

People

“All books are either dreams or swords,
You can cut, or you can drug, with words.”

Amy Lowell (1874–1925) US writer

Source: Selected Poems

Books, Dreams

“I am Psmith," said the old Etonian reverently. "There is a preliminary P before the name. This, however, is silent. Like the tomb. Compare such words as ptarmigan, psalm, and phthisis.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Psmith, Journalist

Source: Psmith, Journalist

“He thought that the rose was to be found in its own eternity and not in his words; and that we may mention or allude to a thing, but not express it.”

Jorge Luis Borges Dreamtigers

Source: Dreamtigers

“There in the center of that silence was not eternity but the death of time and a loneliness so profound the word itself had no meaning.”

Toni Morrison book Sula

Source: Sula

Death, Silence, Time, Loneliness

“I love you,” Bill said helplessly, as if he wished those magic words would heal me. But he knew they wouldn’t.

“That’s what you all keep saying,” I answered. “But it doesn’t seem to get me any happier.”

Charlaine Harris book Dead Reckoning

Source: Dead Reckoning

Love

“Words and pictures are yin and yang. Married, they produce a progeny more interesting than either parent.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Parent

“I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words. I scatter them… in time, and space. A message to lead myself here.”

Russell T. Davies (1963) Screenwriter, former executive producer of Doctor Who

Wolf, Time

“Nobody these days holds the written word in such high esteem as police states do.”

Italo Calvino (1923–1985) Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels

Source: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

“The effort of explaining, even of expressing himself, had become, with the years, more and more terrifying to him. Whether from laziness or from inability to find the right words, he had developed almost a passion for silence.”

Francois Mauriac (1885–1970) French author

Source: Thérèse

Effort, Silence, Passion

“The word of Mohammad is a voice direct from nature's own heart - all else is wind in comparison.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Nature, Heart

“I was beginning to see, though, that the unknown wasn't always the greatest thing to fear. The people who know you best can be risker, because the words they say and things they think have the potential to be not only scary but true, as well.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

People, Fear, Thinking

“Comics are words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures.”

Harvey Pekar (1939–2010) writer

“Some people never say those words "I love you".
It's not their style to be so bold.
Some people never say those words "I love you".
But like a child, they're longing to be told.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Something So Right
Song lyrics, There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973)

Love, People

“Now tell me something. What’s your word for husband?”
“Hellren, I suppose. The short version is just hell.”
She laughed softly. “Go figure.”

Jessica Bird book Dark Lover

Source: Dark Lover

Hell

“This is how moths speak to each other. They tell their love across the fields by scent. There is no mouth, the wrong words are impossible, either a mate is there or he is not, and if so the pair will find each other in the dark.”

Barbara Kingsolver book Prodigal Summer

Source: Prodigal Summer

Love

“What's wrong?"
I didn't say a word."
Something's up. What is it?"
Nothing."
His head turned, gaze going to mine. "Yeah?"
Yes."
A snort and he returned to his bowl…”

Kelley Armstrong book The Summoning

Source: The Summoning

“true love is felonious… You take someone’s breath away… You rob them of the ability to utter a single word… You steal a heart.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Love, Heart, For Him

“I can’t write five words but that I change seven.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Change

“Words are the wellspring of the world, and language is the most powerful weapon in the ancient and still unfolding war between truth and lies.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

Source: Innocence

War, Truth, World

“He could shred me so easily. A few words, a desperate look, and I was cut wide open.”

Sylvia Day book Bared to You

Source: Bared to You

“It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love… You can't own a human being.”

Toni Morrison book Song of Solomon

Source: Song of Solomon

Love

“So much of language is unspoken. So much of language is compromised of looks and gestures and sounds that are not words. People are ignorant of the vast complexity of their own communication.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

People, Communication

“Today we have discovered the word that could not be said. "I”

Ayn Rand book Anthem

Source: Anthem

“A word has power in and of itself. It comes from nothing into sound and meaning; it gives origin to all things.”

N. Scott Momaday book The Way to Rainy Mountain

Source: The Way to Rainy Mountain

“Some nights I need to be held. Tonight I'm a listener. So nice to lie in rumpled sheets and listen. Cover me with words.”

Don DeLillo book Libra

Source: Libra

Lie, Night

“Here in this moment we are beautiful, nocturnal creatures and our thoughts and words are jewels guarded by the moon.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: Solipsist

Beauty

“I would do anything for you. Anything."

With that, he pushed his way out… and as the door eased shut, she realized that I love you could indeed be said without actually uttering the phrase.

Actions did mean more than words.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Unleashed

Love, Way

“When will you learn that there isn't a word for everything?”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Source: The History of Love

Learning

“Words are coin. Words alienate. Language is no medium for desire. Desire is rapture, not exchange.”

J.M. Coetzee (1940) South African writer

“An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories led up to it, it would always have the last word.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“Strong words outlast the paper they are written upon.”

Joseph Bruchac (1942) American children's writer

Source: Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two

Strong

“His blood coursed through my veins sweeter than life itself. And as it did, Lestats words made sense to me.
I knew peace only when I killed and when I heard his heart in that terrible rhythm,
I knew again what peace could be.”

Anne Rice book Interview with the Vampire

Source: Interview with the Vampire

Life, Peace, Sense, Heart

“There's no poetry in me, Reginleit. No fine words." He stared down at her, his gaze seeming to consume her. "I come to you as a man unfinished.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

“Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.”

Chinua Achebe book Things Fall Apart

Source: Things Fall Apart

Art

“He understands why people hold hands: he’d always thought it was about possessiveness, saying. But it’s about maintaining contact. It is about speaking without words. It is aboutand.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

People, Understanding

“Don’t be jealous, baby. We’ll get to you in a jiffy. (Daimon)
Jiffy? What kind of pathetic wuss uses the word ‘jiffy’? (Xypher)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dream Chaser

Baby

“I love you: You imagine hearing the words from someone not related to you, someone not your best friend, but when someone you love, someone you dream about, actually says them, it makes your body melt and your breath get caught in your chest.”

Sarah Mlynowski (1977) Novelist

Source: Ten Things We Did

Love, Dreams, Imagination

“Words are the source of all power. And names are more than just a collection of letters.”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

“The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince

Past

“Why isn’t the word “phonetically” spelled with an “f”?”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

“Awareness
There is a dark place.
A place where I have no eyes, no mouth. No words.
I can't cry out because I have no breath. The silence is so deep I want to die.
But I can't.
The darkness and silence go on forever.
It is not a dream.
I don't dream.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Source: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Dreams, Silence, Cry

“Sometimes when you hit send, you can imagine the message going straight into the person's heart. But other times, like this time, it feels like the words are merely falling into a well.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

Feeling, Imagination, Time, Heart

“Why must one talk? Often one shouldn't talk, but live in silence. The more one talks, the less the words mean. (Nana Kleinfrankenheim, Vivre Sa Vie)”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

Source: La Nouvelle Vague

Silence

“The male who'd just arrived laughed as he embraced Qhuinn. "You havea way with words, cousin. I would say… trucker meets sailor crossed with a twelve-year-old.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Mine

Way

“A stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Heart

“Words have to find a man's mind before they can touch his heart, and some men's minds are woefully small targets.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: Chapter 14, “The Name of the Wind” (p. 113)
Context: Remember this son, if you forget everything else. A poet is a musician who can’t sing. Words have to find a man’s mind before they can touch his heart. And, some men’s minds are woeful small targets. Music touches their hearts directly, no matter how small or stubborn the mind of the man who listens.

Men, Heart

“[From Ianthe]
I am a miser
Of all thy thoughts and words, and looks and feelings—
Oh, I am jealous of a leaf, a flower,
A song, a star, if much thought on by thee!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Feeling, Star, Flowers

“The Chinese system must be classified as a syllabic system of writing. More specifically, it belongs to the subcategory that I have labeled meaning-plus-sound syllabic systems or morphosyllabic systems. I use the term morphosyllabic in two senses. The first applies to the Chinese characters taken as individual units. Individual characters are morphosyllabic in the sense that they represent at once a single syllable and a single morpheme (except for the 11 percent or so of meaningless characters that represent sound only). In this usage the term is intended to replace the more widely used expressions logographic, word-syllabic, and morphemic, all of which are applied to individual characters taken as a unit. The second sense of the term refers to the structure of Chinese characters and is intended to draw attention to the fact that, in most cases, a character is composed of two elements, a phonetic grapheme which suggests the syllabic pronunciation of the full character, and a semantic element which hints at its meaning.”

John DeFrancis (1911–2009) American linguist

Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems (1989, pp. 115-116) http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/visible/index.html <br class="br">Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems (1989)

Sense, Drawing

“Fearless people,
Careless needle.
Harsh words spoken,
And lives are broken.”

Seal (musician) (1963) British singer-songwriter

"Prayer For The Dying"
Seal (1994)

People

“Ah! yes, I know: those who see me rarely trust my word: I must look too intelligent to keep it.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Devil and the Good Lord

Act 2, sc. 3
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

Intelligence

“In the desert of my dreams I saw you there;
And I'm walking towards the water steaming body cold and bare.
But your words cut loose the fire and you left my soul to bleed.
And the pain that's in your truth's deceiving me, has got me scared.
Oh why?”

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

Vox
Song lyrics, Touch (1988)

Pain, Truth, Dreams, Soul

“Some word that teems with hidden meaning, like "Basingstoke". It might recall me to my saner self. For, after all, I am only Mad Margaret! Daft Meg! Poor Meg! He! he! he!”

W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) English librettist of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

Ruddigore (1887)

Madness

“When the ceremony ended Anne and I stayed on the field to greet friends, many of whom had traveled to share the ceremony with us. In one respect it was a difficult day at the end of a difficult month. But in the broader view of life, it was a magical evening at the end of an incredible journey we shared. We walked back over to the quarters we would move out of a few days later, and found friends in the yard and almost every room. At one point I saw Mike Hall, Charlie Flynn, Shawn Lowery, and Casey Welch standing in the fading summer light. I thought of my father, of my first day at West Point, and of our cold Christmas Eve flight over Afghanistan seven months before. The final words of my last speech in uniform, spoken just an hour before were repeated in my mind: "If I had it to do over again, I'd do some things in my career differently, but not many. I believed in people, and I still believe in them. I trusted and I still trust. I cared and I still care. I wouldn't have it any other way… To the young leaders of today and tomorrow, it's a great life. Thank you."”

Stanley A. McChrystal (1954) American general

Closing words, p. 394
My Share Of The Task (2013)

Life, People, Way, Travel

“Throw not my words away, as many do;
They're gold in value, though they're cheap to you.”

John Clare (1793–1864) English poet

"The Cross Roads; or, The Haymaker's Story"
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript

“(In answer to the question ‘How would you describe yourself in three words?’) Short and balding.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Mind Control (1999–2000) or Inside Your Mind on DVD

Question

“It is remarkable, that almost all speakers and writers feel it to be incumbent on them, sooner or later, to prove or to acknowledge the personality of God. … In reading a work on agriculture, we have to skip the author's moral reflections, and the words "Providence" and "He" scattered along the page, to come at the profitable level of what he has to say. What he calls his religion is for the most part offensive to the nostrils. … There is more religion in men's science than there is science in their religion.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/7cncd10.txt (1849), Sunday

Men, God, Religion, Feeling

“These are smart people;
They receive a mess from the east, and a good life from the west;
They never rush because only life rushes;
They are not interested in what awaits after tomorrow;
What is meant to be will come, and little of it depends on them;
When they are together they are in trouble, for this they do not like to be together often;
They rarely trust anyone, but it’s easiest to fool them with nice words;
They do not resemble heroes, but they are not easily scared with threats;
They pay attention to nothing, they care not of what happens around them;
And then out of nowhere suddenly everything interests them, they flip everything and look around;
Then they become sleepers again and do not like to remember what came to pass;
They are scared of change because it often brings evil;
They are easily fed up with a man, even if he does them good;Strange people;
They talk bad about you but love you, kiss you on the cheek but hate you;
Laugh at noble deeds but remember them;
They spend most of their life on spite and goodness;
And don’t know which is stronger when;
Evil, good, gentle, raw, unable to move on, stormy, open, hidden;
They are all this and everything in between;
And most importantly they are mine, and I am theirs;
And everything I’m saying; I’m saying about myself.”

Meša Selimović (1910–1982) Yugoslav-Bosnian writer

Poem

Love, Life, Hate, People

“Somewhere far away a bittern cried, a hollow, melancholy sound like a cow shut up in a barn. The cry of that mysterious bird was heard every spring, but no one knew what it was like or where it lived. At the top of the hill by the hospital, in the bushes close to the pond, and in the fields the nightingales were trilling. The cuckoo kept reckoning someone's years and losing count and beginning again. In the pond the frogs called angrily to one another, straining themselves to bursting, and one could even make out the words: "That's what you are! That's what you are!" What a noise there was! It seemed as though all these creatures were singing and shouting so that no one might sleep on that spring night, so that all, even the angry frogs, might appreciate and enjoy every minute: life is given only once.”

Anton Chekhov book In the Ravine

Source: In the Ravine (1900), Ch. 8, pp. 224

Life, Spring, Bird, Sleep

“Each form of the sacrosanct was regarded by members of the culture which gave rise to it as a revelation of the Truth; at Byzantium it was not a mere hypothesis that was sponsored by the majesty of the Byzantine style. To us, however, these forms make their appeal as forms alone — in other words, as they would be were they the work of a contemporary (and, since this actually is unthinkable, they affect us in a puzzling manner); or else as so many grandiose vestiges of a faith that has died out. We look at them from outside; they are still emotive, but they are no longer true. Thus we deprive them of what was their most vital element; for a religious civilization that regarded what it revered as a mere hypothesis is inconceivable.”

André Malraux (1901–1976) French novelist, art theorist and politician

Part IV, Chapter V
Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence] (1951)

Truth, Faith

“We are talking here about the future: about the lives of people in the world without wars, without social oppression, without national inequality, without suppression of human’s abilities. In other word, it is about the future that we all call Communism. We strive to imagine (and show to the viewer) the reality of the 21st century - the life of future humans developing, solving their difficulties and problems but being already on the new levels of cognition and morality. But the foundation of that future is being laid now. We strive to represent the future people as vivid and free, in the unity of their joys and cares, poetry and prose of their life. We are in no way satisfied with the primitive and unconvincing image of "people of the future", which can be observed in some works of literature and cinema. At the same time, we consider our work to be polemical with the many books and movies produced by the bourgeois world, which tend to see the future in an apocalyptic or technocratic way, affirming a sort of disbelief in the strength and capabilities of a human being.”

Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986) Soviet and Russian film-maker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director

Letter to the central committee of the CPSU (Communist Party of Soviet Union) https://varjag2007su.livejournal.com/2591915.html?utm_source=fbsharing&utm_medium=social (20 October 1970).

Life, War, People, Books

“When Demaratus was asked whether he held his tongue because he was a fool or for want of words, he replied, "A fool cannot hold his tongue."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Of Demaratus
Laconic Apophthegms

Fools

“Flog me if you wish,” she said, though her trembling hands belied her brave words. “It will not change the fact that you were wrong, and I was right!”

David D. Levine (1961) science fiction writer

Source: Arabella and the Battle of Venus (2017), Chapter 7, “Calculating a New Course” (p. 95)

Change

“Immaterial labor has become hegemonic in qualitative terms and has imposed a tendency on other forms of labor and society itself. Immaterial labor, in other words, is today in the same position that industrial labor was 150 years ago, when it accounted for only a small fraction of global production and was concentrated in a small part of the world but nonetheless exerted hegemony over all other forms of production. Just as in that pgase all forms of labor and society itself had to industrialize, today, labor and society have to informationalize, become intelligent, become communicative, become affective.”

Antonio Negri book Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

109
Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

World, Intelligence, Communication, Parting

“Even today, I can not say with certainty whether he himself believed in his words or whether he was knowingly deceiving those around him to urge him to keep to the end.”

Dietrich von Choltitz (1894–1966) German general

About Adolf Hitler.

“[In Ethiopia, ] Abeh enrolled all three of us in school, which was taught in Amharic. We spoke only Somali and Arabic, so everything was completely foreign again for a little while. It wasn't until I could communicate that I came to a startling realization: the little girls in school with me were not Muslims. They said they were Kiristaan, Christian, which in Saudi Arabia had been a hideous playground insult, meaning impure. I went bewildered to my mother, who confirmed it. Ethiopians were kufr, the very sound of the word was scornful. They drank alcohol and they didn't wash properly. They were despicable.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali book Infidel

Source: Infidel (2007), Chapter 4: Weeping Orphans and Widowed Wives

Alcohol, School, Girl, Communication

“One reason nearly half my books are for children is the glorious fact that the minds of children are still open to the living word; in the child, nightside and sunside are not yet separated; fantasy contains truths which cannot be stated in terms of proof.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

The Crosswicks Journal, The Irrational Season (1977)

Children, Truth, Books

“If the study of history is the study of language in one form or another, and if we really fabricate our past, not merely—weakly—live it; then we can begin to see how the world was Greek once, or was Roman, since every page of consciousness was written in these tongues then. All the central documents—laws, plays, poems, reports, abiding wisdoms, letters, scientific learning, news—were couched in Greek or Latin phrases, and the chief historians consulted them, composed their chronicles from the same speech, in the same words. Don't you see that when a man writes the history of your country in another mother-language, he is bent on conquest?”

William H. Gass book The Tunnel

Source: The Tunnel (1995), p. 271

Wisdom, World, Law, History

“O for a single hour of that Dundee,
Who on that day the word of onset gave!”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Sonnet. In the Pass of Killicranky, l. 11 (1803).
Variant: O for a single hour of that Dundee,
Who on that day the word of onset gave!

“In their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer's words, to turn pain into knowledge.”

Alain de Botton book The Consolations of Philosophy

Source: The Consolations of Philosophy (2000), Chapter V, Consolation For A Broken Heart, p. 199.

Pain, Art, Way, Knowledge

“He didn't move. He couldn't talk. He didn't say a word to her. He just looked at her. It is so sad that he had to go this way”

Tariq Aziz (1936–2015) Iraqi Foreign Minister under Saddam Hussein

Daughter of Tariq Aziz, Zenaib Aziz, referring to death of Tariq Aziz... mentioned on BBC News (June 5, 2015), "Tariq Aziz, ex-Saddam Hussein aide, dies after heart attack" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33021771 <br class="br">About

Sadness, Way

“The word " economy" has latterly been used in various senses; the Germans give it a very indefinite signification.
Judging from its etymology and original signification, the Greeks seem to have understood by it the establishment and direction of the menage, or domestic arrangements.
Xenophon, in his work on economy, treats of domestic management, the reciprocal duties of the members of a family and of those who compose the household; and only incidentally mentions agriculture as having relation to domestic affairs. This word is never applied to agriculture by Xenophon, nor, indeed, by any Greek author; they distinguish it by the terms, georgic geoponic.
The Romans give a very extensive and indefinite signification to the word "economy." They understand by it, the best method of attaining the aim and end of some particular thing; or the disposition, plan, and division of some particular work. Thus, Cicero speaks of oeconomia causae, oeconomia orationis; and by this he means the direction of a law process, the arrangement of an harangue. Several German authors use it in this sense when they speak of the oekonomie eines schauspiels, or eines gedichtes, the economy of a play or poem. Authors of other nations have adopted all the significations which the Romans have attached to this word, and understand by it the relation of the various parts of any particular thing to each other and to the whole—that which we are accustomed to term the organization. The word "economy" only acquires a real sense when applied to some particular subject: thus, we hear of "the economy of nature," "the animal economy," and " the economy of the state" spoken of. It is also applied to some particular branch of science or industry; but, in the latter case, the nature of the economy ought to be pointed out, if it is not indicated by the nature of the subject.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

Source: The Principles of Agriculture, 1844, Section II. The Economy, Organization and Direction of an Agricultural Enterprise, p. 54-55.

Family, Law, Understanding, Nature

“Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Aye, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.”

Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) English poet and fiction writer

The Listeners (1912)

Silence, Housing

“From the beginning while we were engaged in these issues, I said in interviews with those who came from abroad, even in Najaf or Paris or among my personal words, I have always said that clerics have an occupation which is more important than these executive jobs, and should Islam become victorious, clerics would dedicate themselves to their own occupation. But as we went on with the revolution, we found out that if we tell all clerics to go after their mosques, this country would fall into the throat of America and Soviet Union. We experienced and saw, those who took the lead but were not clerics, even though some of them were religious people, our revolutionary path was not according to their taste, therefore… we temporarily deviate from our original word until this country could be administered by those other than clerics, then clerics will go back to their preach and their own position and they will leave executive matters to others who work for Islam.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

Imam's Sahife. vol. 16, p. 349,350. (21 June 1982)
Foreign policy

People, Victory, Personality, Country

“As a full-time longshoreman I am necessarily more a scribbler than a writer. But I am also so by inclination. The writing I can enjoy is the sketching of an idea in a few dozen words — two hundred at most. Elaboration and expansion are for me hard going. An article of several thousand words becomes inevitably a mosaic of ideas — a series of ideas stuck together.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Entry (1962)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

Idea, Time

“Don't wanna know your name
You're just my lover
Just wanna spend the night
Walking beside you on the water
You look like my lover
But you're words are cold
You say words like him
But thinking has made you grow old.”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Children of the Sun (1969)

Lovers, Thinking, Water, Night

“This is precisely what is decisive in Nietzsche’s conception of art, that he sees it in its essential entirety in terms of the artist; this he does consciously and in explicit opposition to that conception of art which represents it in terms of those who “enjoy” and “experience” it.
That is a guiding principle of Nietzsche’s teaching on art: art must be grasped in terms of creators and producers, not recipients. Nietzsche expresses it unequivocally in the following words (WM, 811): “Our aesthetics heretofore has been a woman’s aesthetics, inasmuch as only the recipients of art have formulated their experiences of ‘what is beautiful.’ In all philosophy to date the artist is missing.” Philosophy of art means “aesthetics” for Nietzsche too—but masculine aesthetics, not feminine aesthetics. The question of art is the question of the artist as the productive, creative one; his experiences of what is beautiful must provide the standard.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

Source: Nietzsche (1961), p. 70

Beauty, Art, Question, Decision

“The stamp of great minds is to suggest much in few words; by contrast, little minds have the gift of talking a great deal and saying nothing.”

François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

Comme c’est le caractère des grands esprits de faire entendre en peu de paroles beaucoup de choses, les petits esprits au contraire ont le don de beaucoup parler, et de ne rien dire.
Maxim 142.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Quotes about wording page 28

Quotes about wording
page 28