I dig old books. ™
Est. 1998
 | ||
Home About Contact Terms Privacy |
Words Rule!
Quotations
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. ~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "A Defence of Poetry," 1821
Ah, Madame Melba! I am the Lord of Language, and you are the Queen of Song... ~Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), as quoted in Nellie Melba (1861–1931), "London and Windsor," Melodies and Memories, 1925
We are much at the mercy of words; they govern our thoughts more often than they obey them. ~John Middleton Murry, "Manners and Morality," Pencillings: Little Essays on Literature, 1923
"...I do not think it is an enviable situation to be the [best] among the learners of words."
My father gave me a sharp glance, and then said, "Did you leave college because you considered that they taught you only words?"
"Yes, sir; and because I wish to learn ideas."
"Some silly book has filled your head, Contarini, with these ridiculous notions about the respective importance of words and ideas. Few ideas are correct ones, and what are correct no one can ascertain; but with words we govern men."
This observation completely knocked up all my philosophy, and I was without an answer. ~Benjamin Disraeli, Contarini Fleming: A Psychological Romance, 1832, quoted from the 1853 edition
Grammar, which even rules o'er kings and princes
And with high hand subjects them to its laws!
~Molière, Les Femmes Savantes, 1672
The Colt must mind the Bit, the Nail the Hammer;
And even Kings obey the Laws of Grammar.
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Discipline," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924
How long a time lies in one little word!
Four lagging winters and four wanton springs
End in a word: such is the breath of kings.
~William Shakespeare, Richard II, 1595
You perceive the force of a word. He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense. ~Joseph Conrad, A Personal Record, 1912
Do not despair, being few. You possess the supreme science and the supreme force of the world: the Word. An order of words can be more murderous than a chemical formula. ~Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863–1938), Le Vergini delle Rocce, 1896, translated from the Italian, The Maidens of the Rocks
You cannot see in the world the work of the Poet's pen:
Yet the Poet is master of words, and words are masters of men.
~William Alllingham, Blackberries, 1890
That morning he had freed the soil-bound slaves,
Who dig no land for tyrants but their graves!
Such is their cry — some watchword for the fight
Must vindicate the wrong, and warp the right;
Religion — Freedom — Vengeance — what you will,
A word's enough to raise Mankind to kill;
Some factious phrase by cunning caught and spread,
That Guilt may reign — and wolves and worms be fed!
~Lord Byron, "Lara," edited by E. H. Coleridge
Words, — so innocent and powerless as they, as standing in a dictionary; how potent for good and evil they become to one who knows how to combine them! ~Nathaniel Hawthorne
Home About Contact Terms Privacy | ||
|
published 2015 Feb 22
last saved 2025 May 22
www.quotegarden.com/words-rule.html