Quotes
Quotes about Word
'Twas slander filled her mouth with lying words; Slander, the foulest whelp of Sin.
No, 'tis slander, Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath Rides on the posting winds and doth belie All corners of the world. Kings, queens. and states, Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave This viperous slander enters.
And truly, I'll devise some honest slanders To stain my cousin with. One doth not know How much an ill word may empoison liking.
It [Chinese Labour in South Africa] could not, in the opinion of His Majesty's Government, be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude.
Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to publick opinion. This is the weak point of our defenses, and the part to which the enemies of the system will direct all their attacks. Opinion can be so perverted as to cause the false to seem the true; the enemy, a friend, and the friend, an enemy; the best interests of the nation to appear insignificant, and trifles of moment; in a word, the right the wrong, and the wrong the right.
A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.
What the intellectual craves above all else is to be taken seriously, to be treated as a decisive force in shaping history. He is far more at home in a society that weighs his every word and keeps close watch on his attitudes then in a society that cares not what he says or does. He would rather be persecuted than ignored.
We know that words cannot move mountains, but they can move the multitude; and men are more ready to fight and die for a word than for anything else. Words shape thought, stir feeling, and beget action; they kill and revive, corrupt and cure. The "men-of-words"- priests, prophets, intellectuals- have played a more decisive role in history than military leaders, statesmen, and businessmen.
The nineteenth century planted the words which the twentieth century ripened into the atrocities of Stalin and Hitler. There is hardly an atrocity committed in the twentieth century that was not foreshadowed or even advocated by some noble man of words in the nineteenth.
Where intellectuals have played a role in history, it has not been so much by whispering words of advice into the ears of political overlords as by contributing to the vast and powerful currents of conceptions and misconceptions that sweep human action along.
Words have ruined more souls than any devil's agency.
Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays.
One man's "magic" is another man's engineering. "Supernatural" is a null word.
There arises from a bad and inapt formation of words, a wonderful obstruction to the mind.
Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.
Terrible he rode alone, With his yemen sword for aid; Ornament it carried none But the notches on the blade.
The knight's bones are dust, And his good sword rust; His soul is with the saints, I trust.
I cannot sing the old songs Though well I know the tune, Familiar as a cradle-song With sleep-compelling croon; Yet though I'm filled with music, As choirs of summer birds, "I cannot sing the old songs"-- I do not know the words.
I walked a mile with Pleasure, She chattered all the way; But left me none the wiser, For all she had to say. I walked a mile with Sorrow And ne'er a word said she; But, oh, the things I learned from her When Sorrow walked with me!
Discretion of speech is more than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words or in good order.
A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.
He who does not make his words rather serve to conceal than discover the sense of his heart deserves to have it pulled out like a traitor's and shown publicly to the rabble.
Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.
Free speech is intended to protect the controversial and even outrageous word; and not just comforting platitudes too mundane to need protection.
Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.
