Words - Quotes

A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword. - Robert Burton

A broken bone can heal, but the wound a word opens can fester forever. - Jessamyn West

A careless word may kindle strife. A cruel word may wreck a life. A timely word may level stress; a loving word may heal and bless. - Unknown

A definition is nothing else but an explication of the meaning of a word, by words whose meaning is already known. Hence it is evident that every word cannot be defined; for the definition must consist of words; and there could be no definition, if there were not words previously understood without definition. - Thomas Reid

A flow of words is a sure sign of duplicity. - Honore de Balzac

A good word costs as little as a bad one, and is worth more. - Benjamin Whichcote

A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt. - Mark Twain

A single word can scar another. - Unknown

A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed. - Henrik Ibsen

A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words. - Edmund Burke

A word from the wise is like a sign post telling us where to go when we are lost. - Unknown

A word in season is most precious. - Aesop

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

A word is nothing unless it has values and an atmosphere, unless you grasp its historical significance. - Stefan Zweig

A word makes thy fortune sometimes. - Edward Counsel

A word of encouragement is as refreshing as a cold drink on a hot summer day. - Unknown

A word once let out of the cage cannot be whistled back again. - Horace

A word or a simple expression may be a key to the door, an opening to a new understanding. - Everett E. Bishop

A word to the wise is sufficient. - Terence

Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society. - John Adams

After all is said and done, more is said than done. - Aesop

All of life in its complexity and beauty is forever minted in the gold of words. - Yevgeny Zamyatin

All our words from loose using have lost their edge. - Ernest Hemingway

All too often we say the cruel and destructive things, because it is so much easier to be clever than to be kind. But in the long run, proud and abusive words are the ones that cause trouble for us. - Unknown

All words are pegs to hang ideas on. - Henry Ward Beecher

Although words exist for the most part for the transmission of ideas, there are some which produce such violent disturbance in our feelings that the role they play in the transmission of ideas is lost in the background. - Albert Einstein

Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken. - Orson Rega Card

An honest, kind word spoken in love lifts the spirit and refreshes the soul. A kind word not spoken leaves an empty hole. - Unknown

Articulate words are a harsh clamour and dissonance. When man arrives at his highest perfection, he will again be dumb! for I suppose he was dumb at the Creation, and must go round an entire circle in order to return to that blessed state. - Nathaniel Hawthorne

As the bud a leaf, so at last the thought becomes a word. - Richard Garnett

Be careful with your words. Once they are said, they can be only forgiven, not forgotten. - Unknown

Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Behind every word a whole world is hidden that must be imagined. Actually, every word has a great burden of memories, not only just of one person but of all mankind. Take a word such as bread, or war; take a word such as chair, or bed or Heaven. Behind every word is a whole world. I'm afraid that most people use words as something to throw away without sensing the burden that lies in a word. - Heinrich Boll

Better break your word than do worse in keeping it. - Thomas Fuller

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace. - The Buddha

Broadly speaking, short words are best, and the old words, when short, are best of all. - Winston Churchill

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. - George Byron

By words the mind is winged. - Aristophanes

Cold words freeze people, hot words scorch them, bitter words make them bitter, and wrathful words make them wrathful. Kind words also produce their own image on men’s souls; they soothe, quiet, and comfort the hearer. - Unknown

Consider carefully before you say a hard word to a man, but never let a chance to say a good one go by. - George Horace Lorimer 

Don’t waste words on people who deserve your silence. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can say is nothing at all. - Mandy Hale

Even when we know things, sometimes it takes words to make them concrete. - Glen Cook

Fair words never hurt the tongue. - George Chapman

For each person there is a sentence – a series of words – which has the power to destroy him ... another sentence exists, another series of words, which will heal the person. If you're lucky you will get the second; but you can be certain of getting the first: that is the way it works. On their own, without training, individuals know how to deal out the lethal sentence, but training is required to deal out the second. - Philip K. Dick

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: “It might have been!” - John Greenleaf Whittier

For one word a man is often deemed to be wise, and for one word he is often deemed to be foolish. We should be careful indeed what we say. - Confucius

Four swiftest horses cannot overtake the word once spoken. - Chinese Proverb

Good words are worth much, and cost little. - George Herbert

Good words cool more than cold water. - John Ray

He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood. - John Locke

How truly language must be regarded as a hindrance to thought, though the necessary instrument of it, we shall clearly perceive on remembering the comparative force with which simple ideas are communicated by signs. To say, "Leave the room," is less expressive than to point to the door. Place a finger on the lips is more forcible than whispering, "Do not speak." A beck of the hand is better than, "Come here." No phrase can convey the idea of surprise so vividly as opening the eyes and raising the eyebrows. A shrug of the shoulders would lose much by translation into words. - Herbert Spencer

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

If words are to enter men’s minds and bear fruit, they must be the right words shaped cunningly to pass men’s defenses and explode silently and effectually within their minds. - J. B. Phillips

If words suffice not, blows must follow. - Aesop

If you can express yourself so as to be perfectly understood in ten words, never use a dozen. - Horace Mann

If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words. - Chinese Proverb

In silence you can't hide anything ... as you can in words. - August Strindberg

It by no means follows, that because two men utter the same words, they have precisely the same idea which they mean to express: language is inadequate to the variety of ideas which are conceived by different minds, and which, could they be expressed, would produce a new variety of characteristic differences between man and man. - Fluke Greville

It doesn’t pay to say too much when you are mad enough to choke. For the word that stings the deepest is the word that is never spoke. Let the other fellow wrangle till the storm has blown away, then he’ll do a heap of thinking about the things you didn’t say. - Jules Renard

It is easier to swallow angry words than to have to eat them. - Unknown

It's tremendously hard work. Yes, I love arranging the words and having them fall on the ear the right way and you know you're not quite there and you're redoing it and redoing it and there's a wonderful thrill to it. But it is hard. - Elizabeth Strout

Kind words are a creative force, a power that concurs in the building up of all that is good, and energy that showers blessings upon the world. - Lawrence G. Lovasik

Keep your words soft and tender, because tomorrow, you may have to eat them. - Unknown

Kind words are short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. - Mother Teresa

Kind words are the music of the world. - Unknown

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. - Mother Teresa

Kind words conquer. - Asian Indian Proverb

Like a beautiful flower that is colorful but has no fragrance, even well spoken words bear no fruit in one who does not put them into practice. - The Buddha

Look out how you talk about others for these words, empty and arrogant, hit back at you even harder than they may hit them. - Unknown

Many a true word is spoken in jest. - English Proverb

My words itch at your ears till you understand them. - Walt Whitman

Nice words are free, so choose ones that please another's ears. - Vietnamese Proverb

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous. - Henry Adams

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous. - Henry Adams

Oaths are but words, and words are but wind. - Samuel Butler

One kind word can warm three winter months. - Unknown

One man’s word is no man’s word; we should quietly hear both sides. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

Pay attention to the words spoken. Sometimes, people accidentally say what they mean. - Unknown

Pretty words are not always true. True words are not always pretty. - Unknown

Provoking, isn't it? that when one is most in need of sensible words, one finds them not. - Charlotte L. Forten Grimke

Some words are like rays of sunshine, others like barbed arrows or the bite of a serpent. And if hard words cut so deep, how much pleasure can kind ones give? - Sir John Lubbock

Someone of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds. - Unknown

Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart. - Unknown

Stealing someone else’s words frequently spares the embarrassment of eating your own. - Peter Anderson

Sticks and stones will break our bones, but words will break our hearts. - Robert Fulghum

Stones decay, words last. - Samoan Proverb

Superfluous words simply spill out when the mind is already full. - Horace

Thanks to words, we have been able to rise above the brutes; and thanks to words, we have often sunk to the level of the demons. - Aldous Huxley

The best way to get the last word is to apologise. - Unknown

The clear and simple words of common usage are always better than those of erudition. The jargon of the philosophers not seldom conceals an absence of thought. - Andre Maurois

The gift of words is the gift of deception and illusion. - Frank Herbert

The more you say, the less people remember. The fewer the words, the greater the profit. - Fnelon

The oldest, shortest words – “yes” and “no” – are those which require the most thought. - Pythagoras

The power of words is immense. A well-chosen word has often sufficed to stop a flying army, to change defeat into victory and to save an empire. - Emile De Girardin 

The right word is always a power, and communicates its definiteness to our action. - George Eliot

The same words come from each mouth differently. - Jane Hirshfield

The sharpest sword is a word spoken in wrath. - Gautama Buddha.

The unspoken word never does harm. - Louis Kossuth 

The word ‘meaningful’ when used today is nearly always meaningless. - Paul Johnson

The words of the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. - Albert Einstein

The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels. - Hazrat Inayat Khan

The words you speak become the house you live in. - Hafiz

The written word has this advantage, that it lasts and can await the time when it is allowed to take effect. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There are occasions when the simplest and fewest words surpass in effect all the wealth of rhetorical amplification. - George Henry Lewes

There are some things for which three words are three too many, and three thousand words that many words too less. - William Faulkner

There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one. - Baltasar Gracian

There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words. - Thomas Reid

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another. - Napoleon Hill

Through words we come to know the other person – and to be known. This knowing is at the heart of our deepest longings for intimacy and connection with others. How relationships unfold with the most important people in our lives depends on courage and clarity in finding voice. - Harriet Lerner

To reason with poorly chosen words is like using a pair of scales with inaccurate weights. - Andre Maurois

To utter pleasant words without practicing them, is like a fine flower without fragrance. - The Buddha

Too many words cheapened the value of a man's speech. - Patricia Briggs

Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good. - Lao Tzu

We allow words to obscure the interpretation of the deeper meaning. - Stephen Young

We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out. - Winston Churchill

We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them. - Abigail Adams

Weigh words, don't count 'em. - Ken Alstad

What a pity it is that there are so many words! Whenever one wants to say anything, three or four ways of saying it run into one's head together; and one can't tell which to choose. It is as troublesome and puzzling as choosing a ribbon ... or a husband. - Julius Charles Hare

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care, for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill. - The Buddha

When ideas fail, words come in handy. -  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

When words are both true and kind, they can change our world. - Buddha

When you doubt between two words, choose the plainest, the commonest, the most idiomatic. Eschew fine words as you would rouge: love simple ones, as you would native roses on your cheeks. - Julius Charles Hare

When you have spoken the word, it reigns over you. When it is unspoken you reign over it. - Arabian Proverb

Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him? - Chuang Tzu

Wicked words are the prelude to wicked deeds. - Samuel Richardson

Wise sayings often fall on barren ground, but a kind word is never thrown away. - Arthur Helps  

With words, I could build a world I could live in. I had a very dysfunctional family, and a very hard childhood. So I made a world out of words. And it was my salvation. - Mary Oliver

Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know men. - Confucius

Word – that invisible dagger. - Emil Cioran

Words – so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them. - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Words are but pictures of our thoughts. - John Dryden 

Words are but the shining garments of Thought. - Edwin Leibfreed

Words are free. It’s how you use them, that may cost you. - Unknown

Words are like eggs dropped from great heights; you can no more call them back than ignore the mess they leave when they fall. - Jodi Picoult

Words are like keys. If you choose them right, they can open any heart and shut any mouth. - Unknown

Words are more treacherous and powerful than we think. - Sartre

Words are naught but wind, and the fairest promises like dreams that take flight with the morning. - Edouard Rene de Laboulaye

Words are never "only words"; they matter because they define the contours of what we can do. - Slavoj Zizek

Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbours, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them. - Samuel Butler

Words are one of our chief means of adjusting to all the situations of life. The better control we have of our words, the more successful our adjustment will be. - Unknown

Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little. - Unknown

Words are pegs to hang ideas on. - Henry Ward Beecher

Words are seductive and dangerous material to be used with caution. - Unknown

Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble. - Yehuda Berg

Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind. - Rudyard Kipling

Words are the physicians of a mind diseased. - Aeschylus

Words calculated to catch everyone may catch no one. - Adlai E. Stevenson Jr

Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly – they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced. - Aldous Huxley

Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. - Patrick Rothfuss

Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds. - Elie Wiesel

Words differently arranged have a different meaning and meanings differently arranged have a different effect. - Blaise Pascal

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

Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair; they can transfer knowledge from teacher to student; words enable the orator to sway his audience and dictate its decisions. Words are capable of arousing the strongest emotions and prompting all men's actions. - Sigmund Freud

Words have no wings but they can fly a thousand miles. - Korean Proverb

Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world. - The Buddha

Words have the power to build, to store and create, as well as tear down and destroy. We think with words, we organize our world with words, we communicate with words, we inform with words, we build relationships with words. - Leo Buscaglia

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning. - Maya Angelou

Words mean things. When you put them together they speak. Yes, sometimes they flatten out and nothing they say is real, and that is one kind of magic. But sometimes a vision will rip up from them and shriek and clank wings clear as the sweat smudge on the paper under your thumb. And that is another kind. - Samuel R. Delany

Words never can express the whole that we feel: they give but an outline. - Eliza Cook

Words of comfort, skilfully administered, are the oldest therapy known to man. - Louis Nizer

Words of the jargon sound as if they said something higher than what they mean. - Theodor W. Adorno

Words provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness. - Jim Rohn

Words should be weighed not counted. - Yiddish Proverb

Words rich in meaning can be cheap in sound effects. - Dejan Stojanovic

Words spoken are like eggs broken. - Sheri Glewen

Words that soak into your ears are whispered, not yelled. - Unknown

Words used carelessly, as if they did not matter in any serious way, often allowed otherwise well-guarded truths to seep through. - Douglas Adams

Words were too clumsy, sometimes; treacherous, too, always trying to twist around and mean something slightly different. - K. J. Parker

Words which enlighten some darken others. - Edward Counsel

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism. - Herbert Hoover

Words, like glass, obscure when they do not aid vision. - Joseph Joubert

Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

Words. So powerful. They can crush a heart, or heal it. They can shame a soul, or liberate it. They can shatter dreams, or energize them. They can obstruct connection, or invite it. They can create defences or melt them. We have to use words wisely. - Unknown

Words. Words. I play with words, hoping that some combination, even a chance combination, will say what I want. - Doris Lessing

Written words differ from spoken words in being material structures. A spoken word is a process in the physical world, having an essential time-order; a written word is a series of pieces of matter, having an essential space-order. - Bertrand Russell

Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts. - Robert Fulghum

You can stroke people with words. - F. Scott Fitzgerald

You cannot unsay a cruel word. - Unknown

You gave yourself away, word by word, every time you opened your trap to speak. - Don Delillo

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

Your words will either attract a strong mind or offend a weak one. - Unknown