 "All our words are but crumbs that
fall down from the feast of the
mind."
- Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam
 "As we must account for every idle
word, so must we account for every
idle silence."
- Benjamin Franklin
 "Be careful of the words you say,
Keep them short and sweet.
You never know, from day to day,
Which ones you'll have to eat."
- Anonymous
 "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 Gordon, Lord Byron
 "By words we learn thoughts, and
by thoughts we learn life."
- Jean Baptiste Girard
 "Colors fade, temples crumble,
empires fall, but wise words
endure."
- Edward Thorndike
 "Duty is the sublimest word in our
language. Do your duty in all
things. You cannot do more. You
should never wish to do less."
- Robert E. Lee
 "For me, words are a form of
action, capable of influencing
change. Their articulation
represents a complete, lived
experience."
- Ingrid Bengis
 "The good man brings good things
out of the good stored up in his
heart, and the evil man brings evil
things out of the evil stored up in
his heart. For out of the overflow of
his heart his mouth speaks."
- Luke 6:45
 "Good words are worth much, and
cost little."
- George Herbert
 "A great many people think that
polysyllables are a sign of
intelligence."
- Barbara Walters
 "However many holy words you
read,
However many you speak,
What good will they do you
If you do not act on upon them?"
- Buddha
 "I like good strong words that
mean something."
- Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
 "If language is as inextricably tied
up with consciousness as it seems
to be, then the continuing
diminishment of our inclination to
use it to express in letters the times
in which we live could mean that
an element of human
consciousness itself is on the verge
of disappearing."
- Anonymous
 "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 you talk to a man in a
language he understands, that
goes to his head. If you talk to
him in his language, that goes
to his heart."
- Nelson Mandela
 "If you would be pungent, be
brief; for it is with words as
with sunbeams--the more
they are condensed, the
deeper they burn."
- Robert Southey
  "In a sense, words are
encyclopedias of ignorance
because they freeze perceptions at
one moment in history and then
insist we continue to use these
frozen perceptions when we should
be doing better."
- Edward de Bono
 "It has not been for nothing that
the word has remained man's
principal toy and tool: without the
meanings and values it sustains, all
man's other tools would be
worthless."
- Lewis Mumford
 "It seems to me that those songs
that have been any good, I have
nothing much to do with the
writing of them. The words have
just crawled down my sleeve and
come out on the page."
- Joan Baez
 "It's always a bit of a struggle to get
the words right, whether we're a
Hemingway or a few fathoms
below his level."
- Rene J. Cappon
 "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
 "The most valuable of all
talents is that of never using
two words when one will do."
- Thomas Jefferson
What do writers say about words? Take a
look.
 "My task which I am trying to
achieve is by the power of the
written word, to make you hear, to
make you feel--it is, before all, to
make you see. That--and no more,
and it is everything."
- Joseph Conrad
 "Often when I write I am trying to
make words do the work of line
and color. I have the painter's
sensitivity to light. Much ... of my
writing is verbal painting."
- Elizabeth Bowen
 "One of the hardest things in life is
having words in your heart that
you can't utter."
- James Earl Jones
 "Our words should be purrs
instead of hisses."
- Kathrine Palmer Peterson
 "Poetry is a deal of joy and pain
and wonder, with a dash of the
dictionary."
- Kahlil Gibran
 "The real art of conversation is not
only to say the right thing at the
right place but to leave unsaid the
wrong thing at the tempting
moment."
- Dorothy Nevill
 "The six most important words: I
admit I made a mistake. The five
most important words: You did a
good job. The four most important
words: What is your opinion? The
three most important words: If you
please. The two most important
words: Thank you. The one least
important word: I."
- Anonymous
 "So difficult it is to show the
various meanings and
imperfections of words when we
have nothing else but words to do
it with."
- John Locke
 "The teachings of elegant sayings
Should be collected when one can.
For the supreme gift of words of
wisdom, Any price will be paid."
- Siddha Nagarjuna
 "To me, the greatest pleasure of
writing is not what it's about, but
the music the words make."
- Truman Capote
 "Words are the model, words are
the tools, words are the boards,
words are the nails."
- Richard Rhodes
 "Watch your thoughts, they
become your words
Watch your words, they become
your actions
Watch your actions, they become
your habits
Watch your habits, they become
your character
Watch your character, it becomes
your destiny."
- Anonymous
 "When I read great literature, great
drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel
that the human mind has not
achieved anything greater than the
ability to share feelings and
thoughts through language."
- James Earl Jones
 "A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day."
- Emily Dickinson ("A Word is
Dead")
 "Words are chameleons, which
reflect the color of their
environment."
- Learned Hand
 "Words are not as satisfactory as
we should like them to be, but, like
our neighbors, we have got to live
with them and must make the best
and not the worst of them."
- Samuel Butler
 "Words are potent weapons for all
causes, good or bad."
- Manly Hall
 "Words are the most powerful
thing in the universe... Words are
containers. They contain faith, or
fear, and they produce after their
kind."
- Charles Capps
 "Words do two major things: They
provide food for the mind and
create light for understanding and
awareness."
- Jim Rohn
 "Words, like nature, half reveal
and half conceal the soul within."
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
 "Words may show a man's wit, but
actions his meaning."
- Benjamin Franklin
 "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
 "A writer lives in awe of words for
they can be cruel or kind, and they
can change their meanings right in
front of you. They pick up flavors
and odors like butter in a
refrigerator."
- Anonymous
 "You see these dictators on their
pedestals, surrounded by the
bayonets of their soldiers and the
truncheons of their police. Yet in
their hearts there is unspoken--
unspeakable!--fear. They are afraid
of words and thoughts! Words
spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at
home, all the more powerful
because they are forbidden. These
terrify them. A little mouse--a little
tiny mouse!--of thought appears in
the room, and even the mightiest
potentates are thrown into panic."
- Winston Churchill