Quotes about Words

A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words. Some poems took years to find their words.

The chief problem with television is that, for those who watch it consistently, it undermines and eventually destroys the ability to think. This is because it communicates primarily images, not by words, and words are necessary if we are to perceive logical connections and make judgments as to what is right and wrong.

We looked too long for God and truth through words alone. The fruit for humanity has been rather limited, it seems to me - especially when I observe every day the extraordinary amount of unhappy and angry people in well educated and 'religious' countries.

Your words control your life, your progress, your results, even your mental and physical health. You cannot talk like a failure and expect to be successful.

For much of my career I had no authentic political voice. I had been campaigning all over the country not to change the world or shake up my audiences but to please the roomful of people to whom I was speaking... As a result, my words rarely had the ring of truth to the nonpolitical observer.

Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless. . .

How clever are you, my dear! You never mean a single word you say!

He said : Not to know the decree is to be without the means of being a proper man. 2. Not to know the rites is to be without means to construct. 3. Not to know words is to be without the fluid needful to understand men.

Words pale and lose their savor while pain is always new.

Take my words, and fling Them down on the counter roundly; See if they ring.

Shut not your doors to me proud libraries,   For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet       needed most, I bring,   Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made,   The words of my book nothing, the drift of it every thing,   A book separate, not link'd with the rest nor felt by the intellect,   But you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page.

Shut not your doors to me proud libraries, for that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet needed most, I bring forth from the war emerging, a book I've made , the words of my book , nothing, the drift of it, everything . . . . -Walt Whitman