The phrase and the day and the scene harmonised in a chord. Words. Was it their colours? He allowed them to glow and fade, hue after hue: sunrise gold, the russet and green of apple orchards, azure of waves, the greyfringed fleece of clouds. No, it was not their colours: it was the poise and balance of the period itself. Did he then love the rhythmic rise and fall of words better than their associations of legend and colour? Or was it that, being as weak of sight as he was shy of mind, he drew less pleasure from the reflection of the glowing sensible world through the prism of a language manycoloured and richly storied than from the contemplation of an inner world of individual emotions mirrored perfectly in a lucid supple periodic prose? ibid.
Words are more treacherous and powerful than we think. Jean-Paul Sartre
Words are loaded pistols. Jean-Paul Sartre
Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of a style. Jonathan Swift
Th’artillery of words. Jonathan Swift, Ode to Dr William Sancroft
Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is ‘elephant’. Charlie Chaplin
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Plato
Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled. Horace
I will not add another word. Horace
Many terms which have now dropped out of favour will be revived, and those that are at present respectable will drop out, if usage so choose, with whom lies the decision, the judgment, and the rule of speech. Horace, Ars Poetica
Grasp the subject, the words will follow. Cato the Elder
The subtle terrorism of words. Hugh Gaitskell
‘When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, ‘It means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’ Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
But words once spoke can never be recalled. Wentworth Dillon c.1633-1685, Irish poet and critic, Art of Poetry 1680
Immodest words admit of no defence,
For want of decency is want of sense. Wentworth Dillon c.1633-1685, Essay on Translated Verse 1684
The dead-pan cloudiness of the word processor. Seamus Heaney, The Redress of Poetry
All agog at the plasterer on his ladder
Skimming our gable and writing our name there
With his trowel point, letter by strange letter. Seamus Heaney, Alphabets, 1987
A mere tale of a tub, my words are idle. John Webster, The White Devil
For words divide and rend;
But silence is most noble till the end. Algernon Charles Swinburne, Atalanta in Calydon, 1865
The minute a phrase becomes current it becomes an apology for not thinking accurately to the end of the sentence. Oliver Wendell Holmes
Winged words. Homer, The Iliad
Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. T S Eliot, Four Quartets ‘Burnt Norton’
That was a way of putting it – not very satisfactory:
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter. T S Eliot, Four Quartets ‘East Coker’
Each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling. ibid.
Polyphiloprogenitive
The sapient subtlers of the Lord. T S Eliot, Mr Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service, 1919
I gotta use words when I talk to you. T S Eliot, Sweeney Agonistes, 1932
I am not yet so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of the earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they donate. Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it. Samuel Johnson, A Free Enquiry, 1757
I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to be right. Samuel Johnson, Plays of William Shakespeare
Notes are often necessary, but they are no necessary evils. ibid.
Don’t, sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters. Samuel Johnson
Grant me some wild expressions, Heavens, or I shall burst ... Words, words or I shall burst. George Farquhar, The Constant Coupe, 1699
Dialect words – those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel. Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge, 1886
Words are wise men’s counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools, that value by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man. Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679, Leviathan
Some word that teems with hidden meaning – like Basingstoke. W S Gilbert, Rudd
This particular, rapid unintelligible patter
Isn’t generally heard, and if it is it doesn’t matter. ibid.
I’ve coined new words, like misunderstanding and Hispanically. George W Bush, 29th March 2001
A barren superfluity of words. Samuel Garth, 1661-1719
The word is the Verb, and the Verb is God. Victor Hugo
At every word a reputation dies. Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock
In a world full of audio-visual marvels, may words matter to you and be full of magic. Godfrey Smith, letter to new grandchild, cited Sunday Times 5th July 1987
Words are the tokens current and accepted for conceits, as monkeys are for values. Francis Bacon, 1561-1626, The Advancement of Learning
Words which give peace, words which are good and beautiful and true, and also the reading of sacred books: this is the harmony of words. Bhagavad Gita: Krishna's Dialogue on the Soul 17:15
No-one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is vicious. Henry Brooks Adams, 1838-1918
Across the country 9,000,000 children compete in school and city spelling bees. Only 249 qualify for the Nationals in Washington DC. Over two days of competition 248 will misspell a word. One will be named champion. Spellbound, 2002
You get twenty-five minutes on your clock; don’t go over or you lose ten points a minute. Use your blanks wisely. Word Wars 2004, Sky Arts 2012
Invented in the thirties, a craze in the fifties, by the late seventies there were all-night marathons. ibid.
The biggest tournament of all – the US Nationals. ibid.
In 2003 Matt set a record by winning a tournament game in only 96 seconds. He scored 471 points. ibid.