They that dally nicely with words may quickly make them wanton. William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night III I 14-15, Viola
Words are grown so false I am loath to prove reason with them. ibid. III I 22-23, Feste
But words are words. I never yet did hear
That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear. William Shakespeare, Othello I iii 217-218, Brabanzio
As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts
The worst of words. ibid. III iii 136-137, Othello
And your large speeches may your deeds approve,
That good effects may spring from words of love. William Shakespeare, The History of King Lear I i 174-175, Kent
O my good Lord, the world is but a word. William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens II ii 149, Flavius
You cram these words into mine ears against
The stomach of my sense. William Shakespeare, The Tempest II I 112-113, Alonso
Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools,
Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators! William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece 1016-1017
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent. William Shakespeare, Sonnet 76
Man is a creature who lives not upon bread alone, but principally by catchwords. Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque, 1881
In my youth there were words you couldn’t say in front of a girl; now you can’t say ‘girl’. Tom Lehrer, cited Sunday Telegraph 10th March 1996
One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can’t utter. James Earl Jones
We live in a world in which people are censured, demoted, imprisoned, beheaded, simply because they have opened their mouths, flapped their lips, and vibrated some air. Yes, those vibrations can make us feel sad or stupid or alienated. Tough shit. That’s the price of admission to the marketplace of ideas. Hateful, blasphemous, prejudiced, vulgar, rude, or ignorant remarks are the music of a free society, and the relentless patter of idiots is how we know we’re in one. When all the words in our public conversation are fair, good, and true, it’s time to make a run for the fence. Daniel Gilbert
It’s likely that taboo words are stored in the right hemisphere of the brain. Massive left hemisphere strokes or the entire surgical removal of the left hemisphere can leave people with no articulate speech other than the ability to swear, spout clichés and song lyrics. Steven Pinker
We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays
Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words. Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; – not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself. Henry David Thoreau, Walden
There were pools of light among the stacks, directly beneath the bulbs which Philip had switched on, but it was now with an unexpected fearfulness that he saw how the books stretched away into the darkness. They seemed to expand as soon as they reached the shadows, creating some dark world where there was no beginning and no end, no story, no meaning. And if you crossed the threshold into that world, you would be surrounded by words; you would crush them beneath your feet, you would knock against them with your head and arms, but if you tried to grasp them they would melt away. Philip did not dare turn his back upon these books. Not yet. It was almost, he thought, as if they had been speaking to each other while he slept. Peter Ackroyd
The utter inadequacy of language: The Treachery of Images 1935 [This is not a pipe]: In one of his most celebrated series here in English, but made originally in French at the end of the 1920s, Magritte paints a pipe almost in the manner of illustrated text or catalogue, and then proclaims: This is not a pipe ... Words have no necessary connection to the objects they denote. Tim Marlow on ... Rene Magritte: The Pleasure Principle
All I have in this world is my balls and my word. Scarface 1983 ***** starring Al Pacino & Michelle Pfeiffer & Steven Bauer & Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio & Robert Loggia & Miria Colon & F Murray Abraham et al, director Brian de Palma, Tony to Sosa
Words still have meanings even in our days of the computer. Performance 1970 starring Mick Jagger & James Fox & Anita Pallenberg & Michele Breton & Ann Sidney & John Bindon & Stanley Meadows & Allan Cuthbertson & Anthony Valentine et al, directors Donald Cammell & Nicolas Roeg, Brief
I’m sick of words. The Stranger 1946 starring Orson Welles & Loretta Young & Edward G Robinson & Philip Merivale & Richard Long & Konstantine Shayne & Byron Keith & Billy House & Martha Wentworth et al, director Orson Welles, Robinson
Goebbels would provide the musical accompaniment: a war of words. Hitler’s Henchmen: Goebbels the Agitator
Instead of wonderful weapons, desperate lies. ibid.
Words come tuppence a thousand. The Virgin Queen 1955 starring Bette Davis & Richard Todd & Joan Collins & Jay Robinson & Herbert Marshall & Dan O’Herlihy & Robert Douglas & Romney Brent & Leslie Parrish & Lisa Daniels & Rod Tayor & Nelson Leigh et al, director Henry Koster, Elizabeth to Rayleigh
Words became public weapons promoting revolutionary ideas. Adam Nicholson, The Century that Wrote Itself I: The Written Self, BBC 2013
The power of the word would now take over from the power of the sword. Lucy Worsley, Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency 3/3, BBC 2011
Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What is uttered from the heart alone, will win the hearts of others to your own. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Journalists do not live by words alone, although sometimes they have to eat them. Adlai E Stevenson
As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: You liberate a city by destroying it. Words are used to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests. Gore Vidal, Imperial America, 2004
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Late 19th century proverb
You have such strong words at command, that they make the smallest argument seem formidable. George Eliot
It’s just words, boy. To keep us a little warmer in the night, to make us feel like we’ve got a purpose. Game of Thrones s2e6: The Old Gods and the New, Guide, HBO 2012
A fool and his words are soon parted. William Shenstone
When the imagination sleeps, words are emptied of their meaning. Albert Camus
We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves. John Locke
Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth. Friedrich Nietzsche
I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy. James Joyce, Ulysses
He wanted to cry quietly but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
A day of dappled seaborne clouds. ibid.