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Words have immense power …

• A word after a word after a word is power. Margaret Atwood
• 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
• There is no power like the power of words – especially the right words in the right combination. Anthony Lambert
• I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine. Emily Dickinson
• Such simple words! But words are mighty things; They cast us down, or lift us up to rest; They charm and strengthen, till our angel sings The last of all the life-songs, and the best. Sarah Doudney
• The power of the word is real whether or not you are conscious of it.  Sonia Choquette
• Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. Patrick Rothfuss
• Words are some of the most powerful and important things I know….Language is the tool of love and the weapon of hatred. It’s the bright red warning flag of danger–and the stone foundation of diplomacy and peace. Ani DiFranco
• Words are more treacherous and powerful than we think. Jean-Paul Sartre
• Language,  Communication,  Writing,  Quotations,  Eloquence,  Be impeccable with your word,  Right speech

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… a power that borders on magical

• For words are magical formulae. They leave finger marks behind on the brain, which in the twinkling of an eye become the footprints of history. One ought to watch one’ s every word. Franz Kafka
• Your word is your wand. Florence Scovel Shinn
• Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word? Thomas Mann
• Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair; they can transfer knowledge from teacher to student; words enable the orator to sway his audience and dictate its decisions. Words are capable of arousing the strongest emotions and prompting all men’s actions. Sigmund Freud
• I have been a believer in the magic of language since, at a very early age, I discovered that some words got me into trouble and others got me out. Katherine Dunn

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Words contain the power to create ….

• Your word is the power that you have to create. Your word is the gift that comes directly from God. Don Miguel Ruiz
• The word is not just a sound or a written symbol. The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life. Don Miguel Ruiz
• Thought is the first level of creation. Next comes the word. Everything you say is a thought expressed. It is creative and sends forth creative energy into the universe. Words are the second level of creation. Next comes action. Neale Donald Walsch
• The word; the forth-speaking of a thought, an idea, a truth, is the beginning of every new creation, or pulse of creation. It is the inauguration of every new order of things; it begins every new messianic reign, every coming of a better time. The darkness never comprehends it; but always, to as many as receive it, it gives power. Samuel Longfellow
• Imagination is the first step in creation whether in words or trifles. The mental pattern must always precede the material form. William W. Atkinson
• Words are also seeds, and when dropped into the invisible spiritual substance, they grow and bring forth after their kind. Charles Fillmore
• Creative expression

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… the power to communicate …

• The greatest reward is to know that one can speak and emit articulate sounds and utter words that describe things, events and emotions. Camilo Jose Cela
• Communication

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… the power to create understanding, awareness and meaning…

• Words do two major things: They provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness. Jim Rohn
• I still understand a few words in life, but I no longer think they make a sentence. Jean Rostand
• When you are deluded and full of doubt, even a thousand books of scripture are not enough. When you have realized understanding, even one word is too much. Fen-Yang
• Words are the light and sound of our existence, the heat lightning by which the night is illuminated. Dan Simmons
• Words aren’t only bombs and bullets — no, they’re little gifts, containing meanings! Philip Roth
• In the end, it is my belief, words are the only things that can construct a world that makes sense. Kate Atkinson, Behind the Scenes at the Museum
• Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination. Ludwig Wittgenstein
• Understanding,  Awareness,  Meaning

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… the power to carry knowledge …

• The pressed oil of words can blaze up into music, into image, into the heart and mind’s knowledge. The lit and shadowed places within us can be warmed. Jane Hirshfield
• By words we learn thoughts, and by thoughts we learn life. Jean Baptiste Girard
• The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for. Ludwig Wittgenstein
• Even when we know things, sometimes it takes words to make them concrete. Glen Cook
• The investigation of the meaning of words is the beginning of education. Antisthenes
• Until something is named, it doesn’t exist. Samuel R. Delany
• Knowledge

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… the power to convey enduring wisdom …

• Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall, but wise words endure. Edward Thorndike
• 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
• All of us encounter, at least once in our life, some individual who utters words that make us think forever. There are men whose phrases are oracles; who can condense in one sentence the secrets of life; who blurt out an aphorism that forms a character, or illustrates an existence. Benjamin Disraeli
• Collect as precious pearls the words of the wise and virtuous. El Amir Abdelkader
• I swim across a sea of quotes, splashing in the words and riding the waves of wisdom. Terri Guillemets
• If one is not oneself a sage or saint, the best thing one can do is to study the words of those who were. Aldous Huxley
• Our great men have written words of wisdom to be used when hardship must be faced. Life obliges us with hardship so the words of wisdom shouldn’t go to waste. L’Chiam
• Wisdom

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… wisdom that can be collected and shared for generations …

• It’s such a pleasure to write down splendid words—almost as though one were inventing them. Rupert Hart- Davis
• Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your reading have been to you like the blast of triumph out of Shakespeare, Seneca, Moses, John and Paul.  Ralph Waldo Emerson
• The teachings of elegant sayings should be collected when one can. For the supreme gift of words of wisdom, any price will be paid.  Nāgārjuna

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… the power to help us think …

• 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 Byron
• Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking. John Maynard Keynes
• We think because we have words, not the other way around. The more words we have, the better able we are to think conceptually. Madeleine L’Engle
• Words are both better and worse than thoughts; they express them, and add to them; they give them power for good or evil; they start them on an endless flight, for instruction and comfort and blessing, or for injury and sorrow and ruin. Tryon Edwards
• Words are but pictures of our thoughts. John Dryden

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… the power to convey great beauty …

• God wove a web of loveliness, of clouds and stars and birds, but made not anything at all so beautiful as words. Anna Hempstead Branch
• Beauty addresses itself chiefly to sight, but there is a beauty for the hearing too, as in certain combinations of words and in all kinds of music; for melodies and cadences are beautiful; and minds that lift themselves above the realm of sense to a higher order are aware of beauty in the conduct of life, in actions, in character, in the pursuits of the intellect; and there is the beauty of the virtues. Plotinus
• Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.   Edgar Allan Poe
• All of life in its complexity and beauty is forever minted in the gold of words. Yevgeny Zamyatin
• The beautiful word begets the beautiful deed. Thomas Mann
• Words are more beautiful than a found fall leaf. William H. Gass
• He wanted to cry quietly but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music. James Joyce
• Great sweeps of thought, emotion, and perception are compressed to forms the mind is able to hold — into images, sentences, and stories that serve as entrance tokens to large and often slippery realms of being… Words hold fast in the mind, seeded with the surplus of beauty and meaning that is concentration’s mark. Jane Hirshfield
• Beauty

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… the power to convey profound truth …

• The clearest words are those words which contain truth. Neale Donald Walsch
• The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth. Lao Tzu
• Words are the only bullets in truth’s bandolier. And poets are the snipers. Dan Simmons
• The words of truth are always paradoxical. Lao Tzu
• Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good. Lao Tzu
• Truth

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… the power to enlighten …

• Words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels. Hazrat Inayat Khan
• Words which enlighten some darken others. Edward Counsel
• Enlightenment,  Ignorance

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… the power to capture our history and humanity …

• Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity. Hermann Hes
• The word was — civilization! Thomas Mann
• Words convey the mental treasures of one period to the generations that follow; and laden with this, their precious freight, they sail safely across gulfs of time in which empires have suffered shipwreck and the languages of common life have sunk into oblivion.
• Language is the archives of history. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• History

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… the power to arouse emotions and prompt actions …

• Words are capable of arousing the strongest emotions and prompting all men’s actions. Sigmund Freud
• Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. Patrick Rothfuss
• The beautiful word begets the beautiful deed. Thomas Mann
• The right word is always a power, and communicates its definiteness to our action. George Eliot
• There are words which are worth as much as the best actions, for they contain the germ of them all. Madame Swetchine
• Emotions,  Action

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… the power to inspire change …

• Words are a form of action, capable of influencing change. Ingrid Bengis
• For me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change. Their articulation represents a complete, lived experience. Ingrid Bengis
• There are words which are worth as much as the best actions, for they contain the germ of them all. Madame Swetchine
• Change

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… the power to light up and free the mind …

• Words can light fires in the minds of men. Patrick Rothfuss
• By words the mind is winged. Aristophanes
• The mind,  Freedom

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… the power to carry inexpressible messages…

• She had faith in words, believing in their ability to carry inexpressible messages, trusting that what cannot be said can somehow be borne aloft by what can be said. She was right. Frank Conroy

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… the power to bring victory or defeat …

• Sometimes you need faith and victory spoken over your life. Words have created power. When you receive them into your spirit, they can ignite seeds of increase on the inside. Joel Osteen
• The power of words is immense. A well-chosen word has often sufficed to stop a fleeing army, to change defeat into victory, and to save an empire. Emile DeGirardin
• Victory,  Defeat

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… the power to heal, encourage and inspire…

• One word or a pleasing smile is often enough to raise up a saddened and wounded soul. Therese of Lisieux
• So often we think that to be encouragers we have to produce great words of wisdom when, in fact, a few simple syllables of sympathy and an arm around the shoulder can often provide much needed comfort. Florence Littauer
• 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
• Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless. Mother Teresa
• Words are the physicians of the mind diseased. Aeschylus
• Healing,  Encouragement,  Inspiration

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… the power to convey and add meaning to experiences …

• Words form the thread on which we string our experiences. Aldous Huxley
• Words are tools which automatically carve concepts out of experience. Julian S. Huxley
• Without words to objectify and categorize our sensations and place them in relation to one another, we cannot evolve a tradition of what is real in the world. Ruth Hubbard
• It took me years to understand that words are often as important as experience, because words make experience last. William Morris
• Words are acoustical signs for concepts; concepts, however, are more or less definite image signs for often recurring and associated sensations, for groups of sensations. To understand one another, it is not enough that one use the same words; one also has to use the same words for the same species of inner experiences; in the end one has to have one’s experiences in common. Friedrich Nietzsche
• Meaning,  Experience

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… the power to create connection and convey love…

• Almost all words do have color and nothing is more pleasant than to utter a pink word and see someone’s eyes light up and know it is a pink word for him or her too. Gladys Taber
• Desires and words go hand in hand … they are moved by the same intention to join together, to communicate, to establish bridges between people, whether they are spoken or written. Laura Esquivel
• In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of love from one man, rather than the applause of thousands of people. Judy Garland
• Connection,  Love

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… the power to define and convey who you are

• Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Our language is the reflection of ourselves. A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers. Cesar Chavez
• If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words. Chinese Proverb
• In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker. Plutarch

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The power of the word is so immense that it can change the world

• When words are both true and kind, they can change our world. Buddha
• There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world. Orson Scott Card
• Power

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Your words have huge consequences …

• Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things—a chance word, a tap on the shoulder, or a penny dropped on a news stand—I am tempted to think …there are no little things. Bruce Barton
• We cannot afford to underestimate the importance and power of our words. Jell Olson
• Words and thoughts are a tremendous vibratory force, ever moulding man’s body and affairs. Florence Scovel Shinn
• Consequences

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… and can greatly effect your life and the way you experience it …

• Man can change his conditions by changing his words. Florence Scovel Shinn
• Never underestimate the power of words. You make your world with your words. Dee Rimmer
• The words you speak become the house you live in. Hafez
• The word is not just a sound or a written symbol. The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life. Don Miguel Ruiz
• The word is a force you cannot see, but you can see the manifestation of that force, the expression of the word, which is your own life. Don Miguel Ruiz
• Your own words are the bricks and mortar of the dreams you want to realize. Your words are the greatest power you have. The words you choose and their use establish the life you experience. Sonia Choquette
• Experience

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Your words become your actions, and ultimately your destiny

• 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.
• Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviors. Gandhi
• Thoughts lead to words, words lead to actions, and hope is the thread that binds up each. Aimee Angle
• Rnx   Action,  Destiny,  Fate

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Your words reflect who you are

• Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so is he. Publilius Syrus

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Your words can be your power and your weakness

• If we understood the power of our thoughts, we would guard them more closely. If we understood the awesome power of our words, we would prefer silence to almost anything negative. In our thoughts and words we create our own weaknesses and our own strengths. Our limitations and joys begin in our hearts. We can always replace negative with positive. Bettie Eadie
• Strength,  Weakness

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Your words come back to you

• Life is a game of boomerangs in which your thoughts, deeds and words return to you.
• Owing to the vibratory power of words, whatever man voices, he begins to attract. Florence Scovel Shinn
• Every word that you express will return to you. Christian Larson

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Your words effect your health

• The concept of total wellness recognizes that our every thought, word, and behavior affects our greater health and well-being. And we, in turn, are affected not only emotionally but also physically and spiritually. Greg Anderson
• You build your state of health every day through your thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors. Your cells believe every word you say! Christiane Northrup
• Health

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Your words greatly effect others too for better or worse

• Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill. Buddha
• Likewise, the words you speak (or write) are also consciously chosen. Like actions, they have an impact on your life and the lives of those you contact. Jim M. Allen
• One word can give comfort and confidence, destroy doubt, help someone avoid a mistake, reconcile a conflict, or open the door to liberation. Thich Nhat Hanh
• Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair… Sigmund Freud

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Words can be a potent power for both good and bad

• All the magic you possess is based on your word. Your word is pure magic, and misuse of your word is black magic. Don Miguel Ruiz
• Words are potent weapons for all causes, good or bad. Manly Hall
• 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
• Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word. William Shakespeare
• When one with honeyed words but evil mind persuades the mob, great woes befall the state. Euripides
• 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
• Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill. Buddha
• Because even the smallest of words can be the ones to hurt you, or save you. Natsuki Takaya

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Words are energy and their vibration can attract and repel

• 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
• Our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions produce energies which, in turn, attract like energies. Negative energies attract negative energies and positive energies attract positive energies. Norma J. Milanovich
• Words are the most powerful agents of mind. Every time we speak, we cause the atoms of the body to tremble and change their place. Not only do we cause the atoms of our own body to change their position, but we raise or lower the rate of vibrations and otherwise affect bodies of others with whom we come in contact. Charles Fillmore
• Words and thoughts are a tremendous vibratory force, ever moulding man’s body and affairs. Florence Scovel Shinn
• Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble. Yehuda Berg

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Words can heal or hurt; create or destroy

• Our words have power. Power to hurt and power to heal. Gena Livings
• Words can help, words can heal…they can also hurt, and can also kill. Tim Walters
• Sticks and stones may break your bones but words can break hearts. Tim Minchin
• Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble. Yehuda Berg
• For each person there is a sentence–a series of words–which has the power to destroy him … another sentence exists, another series of words, which will heal the person. If you’re lucky you will get the second; but you can be certain of getting the first: that is the way it works. On their own, without training, individuals know how to deal out the lethal sentence, but training is required to deal out the second. Philip K. Dick
• Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours. Eric Idle
• Little words hurt big ideas. Howard W. Newton
• There’s small Revenge in Words, but Words may be greatly revenged. Benjamin Franklin
• Words are very unnecessary, They can only do harm. Depeche Mode
• Words can make a deeper scar than silence can heal.

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Words can free or enslave

• If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to blind, imprison, and destroy. Ralph Ellison
• The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of magic. But like a sword with two edges, your word can create the most beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everything around you. One edge is the misuse of the word, which creates a living hell. The other edge is the impeccability of the word, which will only create beauty, love, and heaven on earth. Depending upon how it is used, the word can set you free, or it can enslave you even more than you know. Don Miguel Ruiz
• Freedom,  Slavery

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Words can be potent weapons and can do immense harm …

• Word — that invisible dagger. Emil Cioran
• A word from the mouth is like a stone from a sling. Proverb
• A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword. Robert Burton
• There are words which sever hearts more than sharp swords; there are words the point of which sting the heart through the course of a whole life. Frederika Bremer
• There is a weird power in a spoken word. . . . And a word carries far–very far–deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space. Joseph Conrad
• Words can be like baseball bats when used maliciously. Sidney Madwed
• Like an arrow to its mark flies the word good man’s word. Platen
• My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn’t just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at! Where you’ve got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren’t only bombs and bullets — no, they’re little gifts, containing meanings! Philip Roth
• Words are loaded pistols. Jean-Paul Sartre
• Print is the sharpest and the strongest weapon of our party. Josef Stalin
• It is with a word as with an arrow — once let it loose and it does not return.
• Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs. Pearl Strachan Hurd
• Words are potent weapons for all causes, good or bad. Manly Hall
• A cutting word is worse than a bowstring; a cut may heal, but the cut of the tongue does not. African Proverb
• A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off. William Shakespeare
• He was a writer and words were his weapons. Christopher Moore
• It doesn’t matter if you and everyone else in the room are thinking it. You don’t say the words. Words are weapons. They blast big bloody holes in the world. And words are bricks. Say something out loud and it starts turning solid. Say it loud enough and it becomes a wall you can’t get through. Richard Kadrey, Kill the Dead
• The tongue is but three inches long, yet it can kill a man six feet high. Japanese Prover

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… more harm even than physical violence

• There are words which sever hearts more than sharp swords; there are words the point of which sting the heart through the course of a whole life. Frederika Bremer
• Harsh words can hurt a person more than physical pain.
• Remember that cruel words deeply hurt. Remember that loving words quickly heal.   Jackson Brown, Jr.
• Violence

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Words can cause a whole world of trouble

• A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words. Edmund Burke

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Your words should be consciously chosen …

• Likewise, the words you speak (or write) are also consciously chosen. Like actions, they have an impact on your life and the lives of those you contact. Jim M. Allen
• Most of us make unconscious choices in the words that we use; we sleep-walk through the maze of possibilities available to us. Tony Robbins
• The words you choose and their use establish the life you experience. Sonia Choquette
• Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill. Buddha
• Realize now the power that your words command if you simply choose them wisely. Tony Robbins
• You are at a choice-point in every moment of each circumstance, each activity, spoken word and thought.  Michael Beckwith
• We must never forget that it is through our actions, words, and thoughts that we have a choice. Sogyal Rinpoche
• Living consciously,  Right speech

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… for you are ultimately responsible for your every word

• I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime. Elizabeth Kubler- Ross
• Responsibility

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Use the power of your word constructively

• We must use the power of our words constructively. Stella Terrill Mann

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Use only words that serve you and others

• Words transform. Speak only with a good purpose. Say only things that serve you and others. Choose your words wisely. Robert G. Allen

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Choose your words with care and love

• Before speaking, consider the interpretation of your words as well as their intent. Andrew Alden
• Careful with Fire, is good advice we know. Careful with Words, is ten times doubly so. William Carleton
• Taste your words before you spit them out. You might need to eat them later. Rain Bojangles
• Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another. Napoleon Hill
• Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill. Buddha
• Words will not fail when the matter is well considered. Horace
• Respect for the word – to employ it with scrupulous care and an incorruptible heartfelt love of truth – is essential if there is to be any growth in a society or in the human race.To misuse the word is to show contempt for man. It undermines the bridges and poisons the wells. It causes Man to regress down the long path of his evolution. Dag Hammarskjold
• Be not careless in deeds, nor confused in words, nor rambling in thought. Marcus Aurelius
• Love,  Thoughtfulness

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Use words as if they were limited and precious

• How much better might human communication be if words were as precious as diamonds? If each of us were allotted only 100 words per day? Jerry Spinelli
• The wise weigh their words on a scale with gold.

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Use your words be in the direction of love and truth

• Being impeccable with your word is the correct use of your energy; it means to use your energy in the direction of truth and love for yourself. Don Miguel Ruiz
• Use the word in the correct way. Use the word to share your love. Use white magic, beginning with yourself. Tell yourself how wonderful you are, how great you are. Tell yourself how much you love yourself. Use the word to break all those teeny, tiny agreements that make you suffer. Don Miguel Ruiz
• The best way to maintain a higher vibration is to make every thought and word you use or listen to as loving and nurturing as possible. Sonia Choquette
• The Buddha’s teachings on love are clear. It is possible to live twenty- four hours a day in a state of love. Every movement, every glance, every thought, and every word can be infused with love. Thich Nhat Hanh
• The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. “One word of truth outweighs the world.”  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• Language does have the power to change reality. Therefore, treat your words as the mighty instruments they are – to heal, to bring into being, to remove, as if by magic, the terrible violations of childhood, to nurture, to cherish, to bless, to forgive – to create from the whole cloth of your soul, true love. Daphne Rose Kingma
• A vocabulary of truth and simplicity will be of service throughout your life. Winston Churchill
• Love,  Truth

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Let your words build up, encourage and inspire

• Every time words are spoken, something is created. Be conscious of what you say and how you say it. Use words that build up, appreciate, encourage and inspire. Lucy MacDonald
• A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after a success.
• I will be generous with my love today. I will sprinkle compliments and uplifting words everywhere I go. I will do this knowing that my words are like seeds and when they fall on fertile soil, a reflection of those seeds will grow into something greater. Steve Maraboli
• If someone listens, or stretches out a hand, or whispers a kind word of encouragement, or attempts to understand, extraordinary things begin to happen. Loretta Gizartis
• Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free- and worth a fortune. Sam Walton
• One word or a pleasing smile is often enough to raise up a saddened and wounded soul. Therese of Lisieux
• Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken a word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-  up of our character and our thoughts, as well as our success.  George Matthew Adams
• May your words build up not tear down, bless rather than curse, encourage not discourage.  Gena Livings
• So often we think that to be encouragers we have to produce great words of wisdom when, in fact, a few simple syllables of sympathy and an arm around the shoulder can often provide much needed comfort. Florence Littauer
• When you hear a kind word spoken about a friend, tell him so.   Jackson Brown, Jr.
• Our words have power. Power to hurt and power to heal. Angry words spill from an angry heart. A loving person speaks gracious words of love, compassion and goodness. May your words build up not tear down, bless rather than curse, encourage not discourage.  Gena Livings
• Affirming words from moms and dads are like light switches. Speak a word of affirmation at the right moment in a child’s life and it’s like lighting up a whole roomful of possibilities. Gary Smalley
• Encouragement,  Inspiration

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Let your words be kind …

• For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. Audrey Hepburn
• Our words should be purrs instead of hisses. Kathrine Palmer Peterson
• Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to turn a life around. it’s overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt. Leo Buscaglia
• Fair words never hurt the tongue. George Chapman
• You can stroke people with words. F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Write kind words in marble, insults in sand. Iranian proverb
• Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Kindness

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… for kind words spread love …

• One kind word can warm three winter months. Japanese proverb
• Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love. Lao Tzu
• Kind words elicit trust. Kind thoughts create depth. Kind deeds bring love. Lao Tzu
• Love

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… spreading happiness and blessing…

• Try to make at least one person happy every day. … If you cannot do a kind deed, speak a kind word. If you cannot speak a kind word, think a kind thought. Count up, if you can, the treasure of happiness that you would dispense in a week, in a year, in a lifetime! Lawrence G. Lovasik
• You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world’s happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime. Dale Carnegie
• 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
• Kind words are jewels that live in the heart and soul and remain as blessed memories years after they have been spoken. Marvea Johnson
• Kind words produce their own image in men’s souls; and a beautiful image it is. They soothe and quiet and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used. Blaise Pascal
• Happiness

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… healing deep wounds …

• The words of kindness are more healing to a drooping heart than balm or honey. Sarah Fielding
• Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. Proverbs 16:23-25
• Healing

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… accomplishing miracles

• A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles. William Hazlitt
• Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much. Blaise Pascal
• When words are both true and kind, they can change our world. Buddha

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Kind words are easy to speak but never wasted

• Wise sayings often fall on barren ground; but a kind word is never thrown away. Sir Arthur Helps
• A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain, while witty sayings are as easily lost as the pearl slipping from a broken string. George Prentice
• Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless. Mother Teresa

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Let your words come from a place of stillness

• Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions. Eckhart Tolle
• Stillness

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Let your words be gentle

• Good manners and soft words have brought many a difficult thing to pass. Sir John Vanbrugh
• A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles. William Hazlitt
• Soft words are hard arguments. Thomas Fuller
• Soft words win hard hearts. Proverb
• Use soft words and hard arguments. English Proverb
• One mild word … will quench more heat than a bucket of water. John Thornton
• Gentle words, quiet words, are after all the most powerful words. They are more convincing, more compelling, more prevailing. W. Gladden
• A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15:1
• A gentle word opens an iron gate. Bulgarian Proverb
• When he spoke, what tender words he used! So softly, that like flakes of feathered snow, They melted as they fell. John Dryden
• Gentleness

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Let your words say what you really mean

• Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that’s the whole art and joy of words. S. Lewis

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Let your words be truthful, not false

• False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Socrates
• All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things. Robert South
• The truth is the most important part of being impeccable with your word…Only the truth will set us free. Don Miguel Ruiz
• Honesty,  Integrity,  Truth

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Let your words be positively charged

• Nobody can motivate himself in a positive direction by continually using negative words. John C. Maxwell
• Speech is one of the most powerful gifts the human person possesses, and like most of our gifts it can be used positively, to raise people up, or negatively, to pull people down. Words are either positively or negatively charged. Matthew Kelly
• The words shared don’t matter as much as the vibration they come from. Elina St-Onge
• Talk happiness. The world is sad enough without your woe. No path is wholly rough. Ella Wheeler Wilcox
• Positivity,  Negativity

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Let your words instil peace

• Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace. Buddha
• Better than a thousand useless words is one single word that gives peace. The Dhammapada
• Saturate your thoughts with peaceful experiences, peaceful words and ideas, and ultimately you will have a storehouse of peace-producing experiences to which you may turn for refreshment and renewal of your spirit. Norman Vincent Peale
• Inner peace

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Let your words be from the heart

• Words spoken from the mind may be interesting, perhaps stimulating and even engaging but words spoken from the heart are invariably profound, gently moving and often transforming…  Robert Beno
• Unless your heart, your soul, and your whole being are behind every decision you make, the words from your mouth will be empty, and each action will be meaningless. Truth and confidence are the roots of happiness. Kathleen Pedersen
• The heart

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Let your words be good and pure

• Good words are worth much, and cost little. George Herbert
• Purity is the soul’s birthright. Let thoughts, words and actions be filled with this. Brahma Kumaris
• Goodness

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Let your words contain faith; not fear

• 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
• Faith

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Let your words be infused with humour

• Be simple in words, manners, and gestures. Amuse as well as instruct. If you can make a man laugh, you can make him think and make him like and believe you. Alfred E. Smith
• Humour

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Be impeccable with your word

• Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love. Don Miguel Ruiz
• Be impeccable with your word

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Measure the impeccability of your words by your level of love

• You can measure the impeccability of your word by your level of self-love. How much you love yourself and how you feel about yourself are directly proportionate to the quality and integrity of your word. When you are impeccable with your word, you feel good; you feel happy and at peace. Don Miguel Ruiz
• Love

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Being impeccable with your word brings wonderful rewards

• If you understand the first agreement, be impeccable with your word, you begin to see all the changes that can happen in your life. Changes first in the way you deal with yourself, and later in the way you deal with other people, especially those you love the most. Don Miguel Ruiz
• Impeccability of the word can lead you to personal freedom, to huge success and abundance; it can take away all fear and transform it into joy and love. Don Miguel Ruiz
• The more impeccable your word, the more you respect and love yourself. Don Miguel Ruiz

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Be true to your word and don’t break it

• An honest man’s word is as good as his bond. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
• Every time we give our word, it counts. For the most part, most people give it entirely too often. Our word is a precious commodity and should be treated as such. John-Roger and Peter McWilliams
• I believe in the sacredness of a promise, that a man’s word should be as good as his bond; that character – not wealth or power or position – is of supreme worth. D. Rockefeller
• Hold firmly to your word. Maimonides
• If you want to take the meaning of the word integrity and reduce it to its simplest terms, you’d conclude that a man of integrity is a promise keeper. When he gives you his word. You can take it to the bank. His word is good. Bill McCartney
• Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self- respect. Marcus Aurelius
• When the Warrior takes on a commitment, he keeps his word. Paulo Coelho
• In a world where vows are worthless. Where making a pledge means nothing. Where promises are made to be broken, it would be nice to see words come back into power. Chuck Palahniuk
• Oaths are but words, and words but wind. Samuel Butler
• One thing you can give and still keep is your word.

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Talk to yourself with words of support and affirmation …

• Affirmation statements are going beyond the reality of the present into the creation of the future through the words you use in the now. Louise L. Hay
• There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling leaves and remember that it is enough to be taken care of by myself. Brian Andreas
• Brain wave tests prove that when we use positive words, our “feel good” hormones flow. Positive self- talk releases endorphins and serotonin in our brain, which then flow throughout our body, making us feel good. These neurotransmitters stop flowing when we use negative words. Ruth Fishel
• Every thought you think and every word you say is an affirmation. Jack Canfield
• I AM – the two most powerful words in the world, for whatever we put after them becomes our reality. Susan Howson
• The single most influential force that controls your attitudes, beliefs, capabilities and emotions is repetition – the words you silently use, over and over again, in your internal dialogue with yourself. Napoleon Hill
• These repetitive words and phrases are merely methods of convincing the subconscious mind. Claude M. Bristol
• We cannot always control our thoughts, but we can control our words, and repetition impresses the subconscious, and we are then master of the situation. Jane Fonda
• Affirmation

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… instead of using the word against yourself

• We talk to ourselves constantly and most of the time we say things like, “Oh, I look fat, I look ugly. I’m getting old, I’m losing my hair. I’m stupid, I never understand anything. I will never be good enough, and I’m never going to be perfect.” Do you see how we use the word against ourselves? Don Miguel Ruiz
• Did your mom ever tell you, ‘If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything’? She was right–and talking nicely also applies when you’re talking to yourself, even inside your head. Victoria Moran

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Avoid using the word to spread poison, blame and fear

• The power of the word is completely misused in hell. We use the word to curse, to blame, to find guilt, to destroy. Of course, we also use it in the right way, but not too often. Mostly we use the word to spread our personal poison — to express anger, jealousy, envy, and hate. Don Miguel Ruiz
• We use the word to create hate between different races, between different people, between families, between nations. We misuse the word so often, and this misuse is how we create and perpetuate the dream of hell. Misuse of the word is how we pull each other down and keep each other in a state of fear and doubt. Don Miguel Ruiz
• You can’t fight fire with fire. Don’t spew hostile words at those who spew them at you.  Tone it down and replace the stink of confrontation with the fragrance of resolution. The louder the opposition wants to yell, the calmer and more confidently you need to speak.  Keep your composure; don’t let them get to you.  Marc and Angel Chernoff
• The sharpest sword is a word spoken in wrath. Gautama Buddha
• To misuse the word is to show contempt for man. It undermines the bridges and poisons the wells. It causes Man to regress down the long path of his evolution. Dag Hammarskjold
• Blaming,  Fear

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Avoid using the word against yourself

• Being impeccable with your word is not using the word against yourself. Don Miguel Ruiz

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Avoid using careless words

• That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less. Arundhati Roy

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Avoid using words that criticise and tear down …

• Speaking with words that bring about harmony consists of speaking of what is good about people, instead of what is wrong with them. For some people this is an almost impossible exercise, for they have become totally habituated to speaking critically. We all seem to have a special talent for finding critical things to say about the world, about others, and about ourselves! Jean-Yves Leloup
• Criticism

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… especially in your words with children

• Every word, facial expression, gesture, or action on the part of a parent gives the child some message about self- worth. It is sad that so many parents don’t realize what messages they are sending. Virginia Satir
• It is easier to build up a child than it is to repair an adult… choose your words wisely.
• The words with which a child’s heart is poisoned, whether through malice or through ignorance, remain branded in his memory, and sooner or later they burn his soul. Carlos Ruiz Zafón
• Affirming words from moms and dads are like light switches. Speak a word of affirmation at the right moment in a child’s life and it’s like lighting up a whole roomful of possibilities. Gary Smalley
• Parenting

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Avoid using the word to gossip

• Gossip is black magic at its very worst because it is pure poison. Don Miguel Ruiz
• Gossiping has become the main form of communication in human society. It has become the way we feel close to each other, because it makes us feel better to see someone else feel as badly as we do. Don Miguel Ruiz
• Fire and swords are slow engines of destruction, compared to the tongue of a Gossip. Richard Steele
• Gossip

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Avoid shouting and your words are more likely to be heard

• We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another – until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices. Richard M. Nixon

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Leave unkind words unsaid …

• The kindest word in all the world is the unkind word, unsaid.
• By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach. Winston Churchill
• Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken. Orson Rega Card
• You can measure the happiness of a marriage by the number of scars that each partner carries on their tongues, earned from years of biting back angry words.  Elizabeth Gilbert
• What is lofty can be said in any language. What is mean should be said in none. Maimonides
• Kindness,  Cruelty

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… for harsh words can never be recalled …

• Don’t mix bad words with your bad mood. You’ll have many opportunities to change a mood, but you’ll never get the opportunity to replace the words you spoke.  Nishan Panwar
• Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled. Horace
• It is easier to swallow angry words than to have to eat them.
• Not the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger.  Chinese Proverb
• Once a word has been spoken, it cannot be recalled. Wentworth Roscommon
• Once you have spoken, even the swiftest horse cannot retract your words. Chinese proverb
• A word and a stone let go cannot be recalled. Spanish Proverb
• The spoken word is like a sped arrow that cannot be recalled. Lord Mason
• When you have spoken the word, it reigns over you. When it is unspoken, you reign over it. Arabian proverb
• Words are like eggs dropped from great heights; you can no more call them back than ignore the mess they leave when they fall. Jodi Picoult
• Words once spoke can never be recalled. Wentworth Dillon
• There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one. Baltasar Gracian
• What you keep by you, you may change and mend but words, once spoken, can never be recalled. Earl of Roscommon
• It is with a word as with an arrow — once let it loose and it does not return.
• A word uttered cannot be taken back. African Proverb

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… and you’re only a slave of the words you let slip out

• A person is master to those words they don’t say, and slave to the ones they do. John Reyes
• We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out. Winston Churchill

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Communication doesn’t just happen through words

• Words are not the only way we communicate, you and I. They never were. Meredith Duran
• Words are a wonderful form of communication, but they will never replace kisses and punches. Ashleigh Brilliant
• Communication,  Body language

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Often, the deepest human connection happens beyond words

• You can talk with someone for years, everyday, and still, it won’t mean as much as what you can have when you sit in front of someone, not saying a word, yet you feel that person with your heart, you feel like you have known the person for forever…. connections are made with the heart, not the tongue. JoyBell C.
• Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words. Rumi
• Connection

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In close relationships, often few words are necessary

• Friendship needs no words – it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness. Dag Hammarskjöld
• In the confusion we stay with each other, happy to be together, speaking without uttering a single word. Walt Whitman

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True friendship is not needing to weigh your words

• Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are–chaff and grain together– certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. Dinah Mulock
• Friendship

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In your relationships, don’t allow words to obscure the stillness

• Most human interactions are confined to the exchange of words — the realm of thought. It is essential to bring some stillness, particularly into your close relationships. No relationship can thrive without the sense of spaciousness that comes with stillness. Eckhart Tolle
• One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people. John O’Donohue
• Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.  Rachel Naomi Remen
• We’re fascinated by the words–but where we meet is in the silence behind them. Ram Dass
• He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words. Elbert Hubbard
• Stillness

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Real listening is listening to far more than just the words a person says …

• Effective listeners remember that “words have no meaning – people have meaning.” The assignment of meaning to a term is an internal process; meaning comes from inside us. And although our experiences, knowledge and attitudes differ, we often misinterpret each other’s messages while under the illusion that a common understanding has been achieved. Larry Barke
• So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Listening

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… for most of what we say does not come through words at all

• It’s important to remember that more than 90 percent of what people communicate does not come through words but through nonverbal communication, such as tone of voice and body language. This is where the paradigm shift usually occurs for people. Stephen Covey
• So much of language is unspoken. So much of language is compromised of looks and gestures and sounds that are not words. People are ignorant of the vast complexity of their own communication. Garth Stein
• The body says what words cannot. Martha Graham
• Words are not the only way we communicate, you and I. They never were. Meredith Duran
• When you and others speak, the meaning you communicate comes from three sources: the words you use, your body language, and how you say your words. Listening with your eyes means you pick up on nonverbal cues that another is communicating through his or her body language. Listening with your heart means you listen for feeling and meaning that is expressed through the tone and inflection of another’s voice. And listening with your ears is simply hearing the actual words that are being said. Stephen Covey
• Words represent your intellect. The sound, gesture and movement represent your feelings. Patricia Fripp
• Great minds comprehend more in a word, a look, a pressure of the hand than ordinary men in long conversations, or the most elaborate correspondence. Johann Kaspar Lavater

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In real listening, the words themselves are secondary

• True listening goes far beyond auditory perception. It is the arising of alert attention, a space of presence in which the words are being received. The words now become secondary. They may be meaningful or they may not make sense. Far more important than what you are listening to is the act of listening itself, the space of conscious presence that arises as you listen. That space is a unifying field of awareness in which you meet the other person without the separative barriers created by conceptual thinking. And now the other person is no longer “other.” In that space, you are joined together as one awareness, one consciousness. Eckhart Tolle

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Don’t leave words of love unspoken

• Many times in life I’ve regretted the things I’ve said without thinking. But I’ve never regretted the things I said nearly as much as the words I left unspoken. Lisa Kleypas
• The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Don’t leave words of gratitude unexpressed

• Appreciation can make a day – even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary. Margaret Cousins
• As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. John Fitzgerald Kennedy
• Gratitude takes three forms: a feeling in the heart, an expression in words, and a giving in return. John Wanamaker
• Never pass up an opportunity to speak a kind word of appreciation. There are six billion people on the planet, and 5.9 billion of them go to bed every night starving for one honest word of appreciation. Matthew Kelly
• Gratitude,  Appreciation

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Don’t leave words of grief unexpressed

• Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bids it break. William Shakespeare
• Tears are words that need to be written. Paulo Coelho
• Grief

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… even if they fall short of what you’re feeling

• That was the hard thing about grief, and the grieving. They spoke another language, and the words we knew always fell short of what we wanted them to say. Sarah Dessen

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Words unexpressed tend to lead to pain

• One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can’t utter. James Earl Jones
• Its not that I have stopped feeling, it’s just that I have stopped expressing. And that causes more pain to the heart and more suffering to the soul. Because the feelings unexpressed, the words unspoken and the prayers unheard are much more heart rending than the physical or mental distress.  Shalini Govil
• Pain

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Never swallow the words of others without first digesting them …

• Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Don’t live by my words, don’t die by them, chew them slowly digest them, and smile if they give nourishment to your soul. Stanley Victor Paskavich
• Surely it is time to examine into the meaning of words and the nature of things, and to arrive at simple facts, not received upon the dictum of learned authorities, but upon attentive personal observation of what is passing around us. Francis Wright

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… and always speak your own words rather than simply regurgitating the words of others

• Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Public opinion… requires us to think other men’s thoughts, to speak other men’s words, to follow other men’s habits. Walter Bagehot
• Seek always for the answers within. Be not influenced by those around you – by their thoughts or their words. Eileen Caddy
• Truths cannot be acquired from words out of other people’s mouths. Before Truths can be internalized, they must come from one’s own realizations and practices. Through a lifetime of personal practice, human beings are capable of revealing all of the secrets of the cosmic essence. You are your own best judge. Buddha

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Words can help us to think and gain clarity …

• A man with a scant vocabulary will almost certainly be a weak thinker. The richer and more copious one’s vocabulary and the greater one’s awareness of fine distinctions and subtle nuances of meaning, the more fertile and precise is likely to be one’s thinking. Knowledge of things and knowledge of the words for them grow together. If you do not know the words, you can hardly know the thing. Henry Hazlitt
• Words are not the end of thought, they are where it begins. Jane Hirshfield
• As the bud a leaf, so at last the thought becomes a word. Richard Garnett
• Something unfathomable lies behind every thought … something for which there aren’t any words. Peter Weiss
• She had always wanted words, she loved them; grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape. Michael Ondaatje
• Thinking,  Clarity

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… but can also confine thought

• For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly. Kahlil Gibran
• Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much. Eckhart Tolle
• Thinking

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Words can help us create ideas …

• All words are pegs to hang ideas on. Henry Ward Beecher
• A good way to turn your mental attic of experiences into a treasure room is to use trigger concepts –  words that wll spark a fresh association of ideas in your mind. Like pebbles dropping in a pond, they stimulate other associations, some of which may help you find something new.  Roger von Oech
• Mere words are cheap and plenty enough, but ideas that rouse and set multitudes thinking come as gold for the mines. Owen Penny
• Words are soldiers of fortune hired by different ideas. Maxwell Bodenheim
• Words were like objects, making the idea more solid — less a poisonous gas and more a … cube of crystallized thought. Dan Simmons
• Even when we know things, sometimes it takes words to make them concrete. Glen Cook
• Words, when well chosen, have so great a force in them, that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves.  Joseph Addison
• Ideas

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… but can also be a substitute for ideas

• When ideas fail, words come in very handy. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Words are sometimes signs of ideas; sometimes of the want of them. Eliza Cook
• Language is a wonderful thing. It can be used to express thoughts, to conceal thoughts, but more often, to replace thinking.
• Whenever ideas fail, men invent words.  Martin H. Fischer

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Words have the capacity to inspire action …

• Words are capable of arousing the strongest emotions and prompting all men’s actions. Sigmund Freud
• The beautiful word begets the beautiful deed. Thomas Mann
• The right word is always a power, and communicates its definiteness to our action. George Eliot
• There are words which are worth as much as the best actions, for they contain the germ of them all. Madame Swetchine
• Action,  Inspiration

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… but they can also be used as a substitute for action …

• The supply of words in the world market is plentiful but the demand is falling. Let deeds follow words now. Lech Walesa
• Words should be used as tools of communication and not as a substitute for action.
• Do not be wise in words – be wise in deeds. Jewish Proverb
• I’m a woman of very few words, but lots of action. Mae West
• We have too many high sounding words and too few actions that correspond with them. Abigail Adams
• It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds. William Shakespeare

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… thus hampering real progress

• A man of words and not deeds, Is like a garden full of weeds.  Nursery rhyme
• Words without actions are the assassins of idealism. Herbert Hoover
• Progress

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Words can’t achieve what actions can

• Good words shall gain you honor in the marketplace, but good deeds shall gain you friends among men. Lao Tzu
• I think one’s feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results. Florence Nightingale
• One’s feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results. Florence Nightingale   
• Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions. Harold S. Geneen
• Action

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Words cant’ be trusted as much as actions

• I dont trust words, I trust actions. Mitchell Perry
• Experience is a truer guide than the words of others. Leonardo da Vinci
• Do actions agree with words? There’s your measure of reliability. Never confine yourself to the words. Frank Herbert
• Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words.  Alfred Adler

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Words can’t speak as loudly as actions do

• Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often. Mark Twain
• Actions speak louder than words. The pen is mightier than the sword.
• Actions speak louder than words…but words sometimes get all the attention. Susan Gale
• When deeds speak, words are nothing. African Proverb
• A thousand words leave not the same deep impression as does a single deed. Henrik Ibsen
• Actions lie louder than words. Carolyn Wells
• Conduct is more convincing than language. John Woolman
• It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds. William Shakespeare
• It is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises but only performance is reality. Harold S. Geneen
• Speak out in acts; the time for words has passed, and only deeds will suffice. Alfred North Whitehead

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Words reveal less about us than our actions and behaviour reveal

• Love is shown in your deeds, not in your words. Fr. Jerome Cumming
• Words may show a man’s wit, but actions his meaning. Benjamin Franklin
• Behavior is a much better barometer of what you are than words.  Wayne Dyer
• I am not imposed upon by fine words; I can see what actions mean. George Eliot

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Our words are nothing if we don’t live by them …

• Like a lovely flower full of color but lacking in fragrance, are the words of those who do not practice what they teach. Buddha
• You see, knowing the words is not the same thing as living the meaning. Suppose I memorize the printed instructions on a first- aid kit. Does that mean I can give first aid? No. The full meaning comes when I admit I know nothing and then try, practice, succeed. Vernon Howard

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… if we don’t put them into practice …

• Words and thoughts concerning compassionate action that are not put into practice are like beautiful flowers that are colorful but have no fragrance. Thich Nhat Hanh
• When we turn around and come face to face with our destiny, we discover that words (spoken) are not enough. I know so many people who are brilliant speakers but are quite incapable of practising what they preach. It’s one thing to describe a situation and quite another to experience it. I realised a long time ago that a warrior in search of his dream must take his inspiration from what he actually does and not from what he imagines himself doing. Paulo Coelho

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… especially when it comes to words of scripture

• The words of God are deeds. Edward Counsel
• He rightly reads scripture who turns words into deeds. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
• For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be judged. Thomas Jefferson
• Don’t tell me about your god with your words. Show me about your god with your actions. Steve Maraboli

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Live as if others are deaf to your words …

• How would your life be different if…You pretended those around you were deaf to your words? Let today be the day…You let your actions speak and communicate your feelings and intentions. Steve Maraboli
• Tell the world who you are but don’t use a word. Fausto Gil

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… especially when it comes to teaching your children

• To me parenting is all about trust. If you don’t live by your words or actions how do you expect your kids to listen to you? Kevin Heath
• A thousand words leave not the same deep impression as does a single deed. Henrik Ibsen
• Parenting

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Let your actions match your words for this is true integrity …

• Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed.  Mahatma Gandhi
• Integrity comes when a person’s words and behaviors match up. True integrity—the true test of character—is to live what you say is important to you—even when you don’t feel like it—to live your values above and beyond your moods. James Arthur Ray
• Integrity means congruence. Words and behaviour match. Nathaniel Branden
• Never separate the life you lead from the words you speak. Paul Wellstone
• When deeds and words are in accord, the whole world is transformed. Chuang Tzu
• The world has the habit of making room for the man whose words and actions show that he knows where he is going. Napoleon Hill
• Integrity

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… and without it, your character is weakened

• If we divine a discrepancy between a man’s words and his character, the whole impression of him becomes broken and painful; he revolts the imagination by his lack of unity, and even the good in him is hardly accepted. Charles Horton Cooley
• If we are strong, our character will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be of no help. John F. Kennedy
• Character,  Weakness

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Let your words align with your greatest vision

• Now, having seen the differences between where you are and where you want to be, begin to change—conciously change—you thoughts, words, and actions to match your grandest vision. Neale Donald Walsch
• Words

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Let your words give power to your intentions …

• Intentions compressed into words enfold magical power. Deepak Chopra
• Intention

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… for your words now contain great power to create a future reality

• Your word is the power that you have to create. Your word is the gift that comes directly from God. Don Miguel Ruiz
• The word is not just a sound or a written symbol. The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life. Don Miguel Ruiz
• Thought is the first level of creation. Next comes the word. Everything you say is a thought expressed. It is creative and sends forth creative energy into the universe. Words are the second level of creation. Next comes action. Neale Donald Walsch
• Power,  The future,  Reality

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Nothing is more amazing than the written word

• But of all other stupendous inventions, what sublimity of mind must have been his who conceived how to communicate his most secret thoughts to any other person, though very far distant either in time or place? And with no greater difficulty than the various arrangement of two dozen little signs upon paper? Let this be the seal of all the admirable inventions of man. Galileo Galilei

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Words are the building blocks of all great written works

• A unification of fact and value is an excellent definition, it seems to me, of any given word in any given language. So words bloom into novels … and the large problem grows out of the small: to assemble words so they work together with something approaching the same force of unified fact and value that each word has accrued in its long, accumulating passage through history. Words are the model, words are the tools, words are the boards, words are the nails. Richard Rhodes

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Writing is simply about putting words onto “paper”, one word at a time …

• This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It’s that easy, and that hard. Neil Gaiman
• Writing is finally about one thing: going into a room alone and doing it. Putting words on paper that have never been there in quite that way before. William Goldman
• When asked, “How do you write?” I invariably answer, “One word at a time,” and the answer is invariably dismissed. But that is all it is. It sounds too simple to be true, but consider the Great Wall of China, if you will: one stone at a time, man. That’s all. One stone at a time. But I’ve read you can see that motherfucker from space without a telescope. Stephen King
• The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible. Nabakov
• Just pick words and put one of them after the other like a baby learning to walk, like a drunk carefully crossing the street. William Gay

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… and yet no other art form can compare …

• To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up. George Orwell
• Art

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Words are more universal than any other work of art

• 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

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No one appreciates the power of words like a writer does

• The writer must be able to revel and roll in the abundance of words; he must know not only the direct but also the secret power of a word. There are overtones and undertones to a word, and lateral echoes, too. Knut Hamsun
• A writer … whittles at the words and phrases of today and makes of them forms to set the mind of tomorrow’s generation. John Dos Passos
• I loved words. I love to sing them and speak them and even now, I must admit, I have fallen into the joy of writing them. Anne Rice
• It’s a writer’s job to carve with language, to hew close to the bone. Stephen King
• Writing

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No one loves and reveres words like a writer does

• 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.
• I love and reverence the Word, the bearer of the spirit, the tool and gleaming ploughshare of progress. Thomas Mann
• I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions. James A. Michener
• You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write. Annie Proulx
• She had always wanted words, she loved them; grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape. Michael Ondaatje
• All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time. Ernest Hemingway
• She was fascinated with words. To her, words were things of beauty, each like a magical powder or potion that could be combined with other words to create powerful spells. Dean Koontz
• I never met a word I didn’t love. Gail Carson Levine
• We are in love with the word. We are proud of it. The word precedes the formation of the state. The word comes to us from every avatar of early human existence. As writers, we are obliged more than others to keep our lives attached to the primitive power of the word. From India, out of the Vedas, we still hear: On the spoken word, all the gods depend, all beasts and men; in the world live all creatures…The word is the name of the divine world. Norman Mailer
• Reverence

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To be a writer, loving words is a prerequisite

• I am simply of the opinion that you cannot be taught to write. You have to spend a lifetime in love with words. Craig Claiborne

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The challenge of a writer is to find the right words…

• 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
• In good prose, every word should be underlined! that is, every word should be the right one; and then no one would be righter than another. There are no italics in Plato. Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare
• Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. Stephen King
• Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. S. Lewis
• That’s all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones. Raymond Carver
• The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. Mark Twain
• Writers fish for the right words like fishermen fish for, um, whatever those aquatic creatures with fins and gills are called.  Jarod Kintz
• Use the right word and not its second cousin. Mark Twain
• Don’t say it was delightful; make us say delightful when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers Please will you do the job for me. C. S. Lewis
• Words. I play with words, hoping that some combination, even a chance combination, will say what I want. Doris Lessing
• It’s tremendously hard work. Yes, I love arranging the words and having them fall on the ear the right way and you know you’re not quite there and you’re redoing it and redoing it and there’s a wonderful thrill to it. But it is hard. Elizabeth Strout

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… for the right words can have a profound effect

• 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. B. Phillips
• I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little or make a poem that children will speak for you when you are dead. Tom Stoppard
• A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt. Mark Twain

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Writers use words with great care, thought, fear and delight

• A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story- tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper. Ursula K. Le Guin

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Writers use words to make you see and feel

• 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

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Writers turn words into music

• To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the music the words make. Truman Capote
• Fine phrases I value more than bank-notes. I have ear for no other harmony than the harmony of words. To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.  Alexander Smith
• He wanted to cry quietly but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music. James Joyce
• I am telling you what I know—words have music and if you are a musician you will write to hear them. E.L. Doctorow
• Music

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Words are far more powerful when we use fewer of them

• As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence. Benjamin Franklin
• 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
• The more you say, the less people remember. The fewer the words, the greater the profit. Fenelon
• It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn. Robert Southey
• There’s a great power in words, if you don’t hitch too many of them together. Josh Billings
• A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit. Samuel Johnson
• Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few. Pythagoras
• The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do. Thomas Jefferson
• If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought. Dennis Roth
• Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. William Strunk, Jr.
• A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. William Strunk, Jr.
• In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style. Sydney Smith
• If you can’t explain something in a few words, try fewer. Robert Brault
• An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows. Dwight D. Eisenhower
• My father always said that too many words cheapened the value of a man’s speech. Patricia Briggs
• If you can express yourself so as to be perfectly understood in ten words, never use a dozen. Horace Mann
• Too many words cheapened the value of a man’s speech. Patricia Briggs
• Words, like cannon balls, should go direct to their mark. Christian Nestell Bovee
• Words are the coins making up the currency of sentences, and there are always too many small coins. Jules Renard
• To be brief is almost a condition of being inspired. George Santayana
• A word too much always defeats its purpose. Arthur Schopenhauer
• When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain. William Shakespeare
• He who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike dumb the loquacious, is a genius or a hero. Johann Kaspar Lavater
• Eloquence,  Brevity

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The simplest and most common words are usually the best

• Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all. Winston Churchill
• Don’t use a big word where a diminutive one will suffice.
• One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple. Jack Kerouac
• One should use common words to say uncommon things. Arthur Schopenhauer
• When you doubt between two words, choose the plainest, the commonest, the most idiomatic. Eschew fine words as you would rouge: love simple ones, as you would native roses on your cheeks. Julius Charles Hare
• Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten- dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use. Ernest Hemingway
• An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I’ve dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half… I never write metropolis for seven cents, because I can get the same money for city. I never write policeman, because I can get the same price for cop…. I never write valetudinarian at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn’t do it for fifteen. Mark Twain
• I would never use a long word where a short one would answer the purpose. I know there are professors in this country who ‘ligate’ arteries.  Other surgeons only tie them, and it stops the bleeding just as well.   Oliver Wendell Holmes
• If we use common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking, because they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like old banners, or everyday clothes, hung up in a sacred place. George Eliot

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Words speak most loudly to us when we read

• Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know. Alberto Manguel
• At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of a book–that string of confused, alien ciphers– shivered into meaning. Words spoke to you, gave up their secrets; at that moment, whole universes opened. You became, irrevocably, a reader. Alberto Manguel
• The importance of reading, for me, is that it allows you to dream. Reading not only educates, but is relaxing and allows you to feed your imagination – creating beautiful pictures from carefully chosen words. Eric Ripert
• There’s nothing wrong with reading a book you love over and over. When you do, the words get inside you, become a part of you, in a way that words in a book you’ve read only once can’t. Gail Carson Levine
• He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head. John Green
• Reading

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To read written words is not an escape from life but can help you live more fully

• When you use words, you’re able to keep your mind alive. Writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.  Gao Xingjian  
• While thought exists, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living. Cyril Connolly

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Reading words helps you write them

• Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river. Lisa See

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At times, words have strong limitations

• 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
• Words, he decided, were inadequate at best, impossible at worst. They meant too many things. Or they meant nothing at all. Patricia A. McKillip
• For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly. Kahlil Gibran
• In fact, words are well adapted for description and the arousing of emotion, but for many kinds of precise thought other symbols are much better. J.B.S. Haldane
• There’s always something that you can’t pin down with words. Words fall flat all the time — look at the word dust around you. Dr. SunWolf

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There are many things that cannot be put adequately into words …

• There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. Ludwig Wittgenstein
• Things are not all so comprehensible and expressible as one would mostly have us believe; most events are inexpressible, taking place in a realm which no word has ever entered, and more inexpressible than all else are works of art, mysterious existences, the life of which, while ours passes away, endures. Rainer Maria Rilke
• How pathetic it is to describe these things which can’t truly be described. Anne Rice
• It’s strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words. T. S. Eliot
• Nothing we use or hear or touch can be expressed in words that equal what we are given by the senses. Hannah Arendt

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… especially the most important things

• The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them. Stephen King
• The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them – – words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a tellar but for want of an understanding ear. Stephen King

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Words are not adequate to express life’s most special moments

• Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• There are in life a few moments so beautiful,that even words are a sort of profanity. Diana Palmer
• Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words? Marcel Marceau

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Words are not adequate to express our deepest emotions

• Completeness? Happiness? These words don’t come close to describing my emotions. There truly is nothing I can say to capture what motherhood means to me. Anita Baker
• Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in “sadness,” “joy,” or “regret.” Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I’d like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions. Jeffrey Eugenides
• I know exactly what I want. Everything. Calm, peace, tranquility, freedom, fun, happiness. If I could make all that one word, I would – a many-syllabled word. Johnny Depp
• Love is beyond reason. Love is not measurable in words. Love cannot be partial; it cannot have owners. Love is essentially beyond definition or concept. Mabel Iam
• Words are like nets – we hope they’ll cover what we mean, but we know they can’t possibly hold that much joy, or grief, or wonder. Jodi Picoult
• How to put this feeling, this certainty, into something as limited as words? Eileen Wilks
• My feelings are too loud for words and too shy for the world. Dejan Stojanovic
• The word is too weak. There is no word in the language strong enough to describe my feelings. Jack London
• Words never can express the whole that we feel: they give but an outline. Eliza Cook
• Words are poor interpreters in the realms of emotion. When all words end, music begins; when they suggest, it realizes; and hence is the secret of its strange, inexpressible power. H. R. Haweis
• Emotions

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Words aren’t adequate to describe deep suffering and pain

• There is the solitude of suffering, when you go through darkness that is lonely, intense, and terrible. Words become powerless to express your pain; what others hear from your words is so distant and different from what you are actually suffering. John O’Donohue
• When there is pain, there are no words. All pain is the same. Toni Morrison
• That was the hard thing about grief, and the grieving. They spoke another language, and the words we knew always fell short of what we wanted them to say. Sarah Dessen
• Suffering,  Pain

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Words are not adequate sometimes to describe nature …

• The sea is emotion incarnate. It loves, hates, and weeps. It defies all attempts to capture it with words and rejects all shackles. No matter what you say about it, there is always that which you can’t. Christopher Paolini
• Nature

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… and nature itself speaks to us very eloquently with no words at all

• The sensitive man can freshen his trust in the ultimate goodness of things from a glowing sunset, can renew his inward peace with a forest walk. Nature lovingly speaks to him, all wordless though she be. Paul Brunton
• Eloquence

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Words are not adequate to express what God is …

• Every word, every image used for God is a distortion more than a description. Anthony de Mello
• God transcends all conceptuality. Only ego presumes that the All Pervading Divine Presence could be reduced to words. Leland Lewis
• Spirituality for me is recognizing that I am connected to the energy of all creation, that I am a part of it and it is always a part of me. Whatever label or word we use to describe “it” doesn’t matter. Words are completely inadequate. Oprah Winfrey
• God

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… and our attempts to do so have made the word “God” empty of meaning to many

• The word God has become empty of meaning through thousands of years of misuse. I use it sometimes, but I do so sparingly. By misuse, I mean that people who have never even glimpsed at the realm of the sacred, the infinite vastness behind that word, use it with great conviction, as if they knew what they are talking about. Or, they argue against it, as if they knew what it is that they are denying. This misuse gives rise to absurd beliefs, assertions, and egoic delusions, such as “My or our God is the only true God, and your God is false,” or Neitzche’s famous statement “God is dead.” Eckhart Tolle
• We don’t use the word God, because man has already decided what God is. And what man has decided, God isn’t. Abraham-Hicks

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Words are not adequate to describe the ultimate purpose of the universe

• Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much. Language consists of five basic sounds produced by the vocal cords. They are the vowels a, e, i, o, u. The other sounds are consonants produced by air pressure: s, f, g, and so forth. Do you believe some combination of such basic sounds could ever explain who you are, or the ultimate purpose of the universe, or even what a tree or stone is in its depth? Eckhart Tolle
• Purpose

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Words are not adequate to describe our experiences

• We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves… Words are uttered, but fail to enlighten. The things and events to which the symbols refer belong to mutually exclusive realms of experience. Aldous Huxley
• Experience

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Words are not adequate to to express human connection and friendship

• There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematician that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. K. Chesterton
• Connection,  Friendship

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Words are like a chameleon whose skin constantly changes colour

• The 500 most commonly used words have an average of 28 meanings each.
• 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.
• Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment. Learned Hand
• A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought, and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used. Oliver Wendell Holmes
• Words can have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used. David Lehman
• One cannot be too careful with words, they change their minds just as people do. José Saramago

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Words can be a seductive drug

• Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. Rudyard Kipling
• I shall repeat a hundred times; we really ought to free ourselves from the seduction of words! Friedrich Nietzsche

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Words can be treacherous

• Our words have wings, but fly not where we would. George Eliot
• Words are more treacherous and powerful than we think. Sartre
• Words were too clumsy, sometimes; treacherous, too, always trying to twist around and mean something slightly different. K. J. Parker

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Words can be ambiguous

• There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words. Thomas Reid
• Words are such gross machinery, so primitive and ambiguous. Frank Herbert

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Words can confuse

• Words are like eyeglasses they blur everything that they do not make clear. Joseph Joubert
• Confusion

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Words can be twisted and manipulated

• Words can be twisted into any shape. Promises can be made to lull the heart and seduce the soul. Karen Marie Moning

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Words can mislead

• How often misused words generate misleading thoughts. Herbert Spencer

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Words can be misinterpreted

• Our words are, as a general rule, filled by the people to whom we address them with a meaning which those people derive from their own substance, a meaning widely different from that which we had put into the same words when we uttered them. Marcel Proust
• Words were too clumsy, sometimes; treacherous, too, always trying to twist around and mean something slightly different. K. J. Parker
• If we use words, there is a very grave danger they will be misinterpreted. H.R. Haldeman

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Words can obscure knowledge and awareness if we don’t look behind them …

• A good catchword can obscure analysis for fifty years. Wendell L. Wilke
• Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within. Alfred, Lord Tennyson
• Knowledge,  Awareness

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… creating a kind of ignorance

• 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
• There is no means by which men so powerfully elude their ignorance, disguise it from themselves and from others as by words. Gamaliel Bradford
• Ignorance

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Words can be used to conceal things, especially true feelings

• Her words were like tinfoil; they shone and they covered things up. Helen Cross
• Words were given to man to conceal his true feelings. Voltaire
• …if you do not even understand what words say, how can you expect to pass judgement on what words conceal? H.D., Trilogy

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Words often distort and create illusion

• As soon as we start putting our thoughts into words and sentences everything gets distorted, language is just no damn good—I use it because I have to, but I don’t put any trust in it. We never understand each other. Marcel Duchamp
• Words do not express thoughts very well; every thing immediately becomes a little different, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom of one man seems nonsense to another. Hermann Hesse
• Language, philosophy, and science are interwoven into the design of words, which are manipulated to create surprising illusions. John Langdon
• Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. Rudyard Kipling
• Words are illusions. Bodhidharma
• When we try to describe the truth with words, we distort it and it’s no longer truth–it’s our story. The story may be true for us, but that doesn’t mean it’s true for anyone else. Don Miguel Ruiz
• The gift of words is the gift of deception and illusion. Frank Herbert
• All words are part true and part false. Master Kahn
• I have made every effort to use words that are almost impossible to distort, but it is always possible to twist symbols around if you wish. A Course in Miracles
• Illusion

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Words can divide

• All ideologies are idiotic, whether religious or political, for it is conceptual thinking, the conceptual word, which has so unfortunately divided man. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• The word love has by no means the same sense for both sexes, and this is one cause of the serious misunderstandings that divide them. Simone de Beauvoir
• It by no means follows, that because two men utter the same words, they have precisely the same idea which they mean to express: language is inadequate to the variety of ideas which are conceived by different minds, and which, could they be expressed, would produce a new variety of characteristic differences between man and man. Fulke Greville
• Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society. John Adams
• Words divide us, actions unite us. Tupamoros

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Words often cannot be trusted

• There can be no doubt that distrust of words is less harmful than unwarranted trust in them. Besides, to distrust words, and indict them for the horrors that might slumber unobtrusively within them – isn’t this, after all, the true vocation of the intellectual? Vaclav Havel
• I dont trust words, I trust actions. Mitchell Perry
• Trust

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Words are hollow without trust

• Without trust, words become the hollow sound of a wooden gong. With trust, words become life itself. John Harold

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A picture expresses what words cannot – or does it?

• Use a picture. It’s worth a thousand words. Arthur Brisbane
• A picture, it is said, is worth a thousand words, but cannot a few well-spoken words convey as many pictures?
• The camera would miss it all. A magnificent picture is never worth a thousand perfect words. Ansel Adams can be a great artist, but he can never be Shakespeare. His tools are too literal. John Dunning
• A picture can tell a thousand words, but a few words can change it’s story. Sebastyne Young
• Good words are worth a thousand pictures.

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The body expresses what words cannot

• The way towards each other is through our bodies. Words are the longest distance you can travel, so complex and hazardous you lose your direction. Jeni Couzyn
• The body says what words cannot. Martha Graham
• The body

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Hugs express what words cannot

• A hug is worth a thousand words.
• A silent hug means a thousand words to an unhappy heart.
• A hug sometimes communicates more than words can express.
• A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature To stop speech when words become superfluous. Ingrid Bergman
• Sometimes it’s better to put love into hugs than to put it into words.

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Music expresses what words cannot

• For heights and depths no words can reach, music is the soul’s own speech.
• How is it that music can, without words, evoke our laughter, our fears, our highest aspirations? Jane Swan
• Chocolate says “I’m sorry” so much better than words. Rachel Vincent
• I love the relationship that anyone has with music … because there’s something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. … It’s the best part of us probably … Nick Hornby
• Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent. Victor Hugo
• Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones. Keith Richards
• Music is to the soul what words are to the mind. Modest Mouse
• Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can’t. Johnny Depp
• Music without words means leaving behind the mind. And leaving behind the mind is meditation. Meditation returns you to the source. And the source of all is sound. Kabir
• Where words fail, music speaks. Hans Christian Andersen
• When words leave off, music begins. Heinrich Heine
• Music

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The eyes can express what words cannot

• The eyes are one of the most powerful tools a woman can have. With one look, she can relay the most intimate message. After the connection is made, words cease to exist. Jennifer Salaiz

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Tears express what words cannot

• Tears are words the mouth can’t say nor can the heart bare. Joshua Wisenbaker
• Tears are the noble language of eyes, and when true love of words is destitute. The eye by tears speak, while the tongue is mute. Robert Herrick
• Words are made for a certain exactness of thought, as tears are for a certain degree of pain. What is least distinct cannot be named; what is clearest is unutterable. Rene Daumal
• Tears are words the heart can’t express.
• Tears

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The right pause can express what even the right word cannot

• The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. Mark Twain

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Words aren’t perfect but we can make the most of them

• 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

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Words can stop us from really seeing something …

• There is an art of seeing things as they are: without naming, without being caught in a network of words, without thinking interfering with perception. Jiddu Krishnamurti

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… from really knowing the miracle and wonder of something …

• Words, no matter whether they are vocalized and made into sound or remain unspoken as thoughts, can cast an almost hypnotic spell upon you. You easily lose yourself in them, become hypnotized into believing that when you have attached a word to something, you know what it is. The fact is: You don’t know what it is. You have only covered up the mystery with a label. Everything, a bird, a tree, even a simple stone, and certainly a human being, is ultimately unknowable. This is because it has unfathomable depth. All we can perceive, experience, think about, is the surface layer of reality, less than the tip of an iceberg. Eckhart Tolle
• When you don’t cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life. Things regain their newness, their freshness. And the greatest miracle is the experiencing of your essential self as prior to any words, thoughts, mental labels, and images. Eckhart Tolle
• Words are mere sound and smoke, dimming the heavenly lightJohann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Wonder,  Mystery

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… creating a block between us and direct experience

• Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, … Eckhart Tolle
• There is a joy in the actual taste of vanilla ice cream that does not come from knowing the chemical formula of vanilla. There is a joy, an inherent aliveness in the body that you can experience if you pay attention to your body. But if you live up in your head, in your words all the time, you don’t notice it. Charles Tart
• Words are not necessary to one’s experience of the true life. Don Delillo

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Words reduce reality

• Reality is beyond thoughts and words. Eckhart Tolle
• Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much. Eckhart Tolle
• Trying to use words to clarify reality is like trying to live in a dictionary. Ikkyu Jones
• In the final analysis, words mean nothing. They are labels we give things in an effort to wrap our puny little brains around their underlying natures, when ninety-nine percent of the time the totality of the reality is an entirely different beast. Karen Marie Moning
• No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words. Roger Zelazny
• What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously. A convention is a social convenience, as, for example, money … but it is absurd to take money too seriously, to confuse it with real wealth … In somewhat the same way, thoughts, ideas and words are “coins” for real things. Alan Wilson Watts
• The menu is not the meal. Alan Wilson Watts
• Nothing we use or hear or touch can be expressed in words that equal what we are given by the senses. Hannah Arendt
• When you don’t impose a word on something, you can see far deeper into it
• Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself. When you look at it or hold it and let it be without imposing a word or mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you. Eckhart Tolle
• Reality

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Words can never capture spiritual truth but only point to it

• Although all spiritual teachings originate from the same Source, once they become verbalized and written down they are obviously no more than collections of words – and a word is nothing but a signpost. Eckhart Tolle
• I confess that there is nothing to teach: no religion, no science, no writings which will lead your mind back to Spirit. Today I speak this way, tomorrow that, but always the Path is beyond words and beyond mind.  Lao Tzu
• No words, phrases, or sentences are capable of describing or naming the Way, because once it is named, it is a false name and has to be eliminated. Once it is eliminated, only emptiness is left. When the false is abandoned, the true emerges. Henry Chang
• The treasure I have found cannot be described in words, the mind cannot conceive of it. Shankara
• You should stop pursuing words and letters, and learn to withdraw and reflect on yourself. When you do so, your body and mind will fall away naturally and your original Buddha-nature will appear. Dogen
• Words are merely utterances: noises that stand for feelings, thoughts, and experience. They are symbols. Signs. Insignias. They are not Truth. They are not the real thing. In fact, you place so little value on experience that when what your experience of God differs from what you’ve heard of God, you automatically discard the experience and own the words, when it should be just the other way around. Neale Donald Walsch
• Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth. Friedrich Nietzsche
• When all the words have been written, and all the phrases have been spoken, the great mystery of life will still remain. Kent Nerburn
• Ultimately, awakening awareness is experiential. Alone, offered ‘truth’ is but more words in a world too cluttered with pretentious words. Experiencing ‘truth’ will affect a permanent change in you. G.’s Zaadz
• Trying to find the Truth through words and speech is like putting your head in a bowl of glue. Yuan Wu
• Truth is something which can’t be told in a few words. Those who simplify the universe only reduce the expansion of its meaning. Anaïs Nin
• Truth is freedom. Truth requires no belief, no effort. It is what is. Of course words cannot express this. But truth is freedom. Tom Thompson
• It is not that the meaning cannot be explained. But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words. Haruki Murakami
• The act of saying that things exist that cannot be described in words shakes a universe where words are the supreme belief. Frank Herbert
• Words themselves were the ultimate barrier to revelation. Frank Herbert
• Of course, not everything is unsayable in words, only the living truth. Eugène Ionesco
• Words are finite organs of the infinite mind. They cannot cover the dimensions of what is in truth. They break, chop, and impoverish it. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Truth,  Spirituality

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Silence can be a far more powerful conveyer of truths than words

• You are most powerful when you are most silent. People never expect silence. They expect words, motion, defense, offense, back and forth. They expect to leap into the fray. They are ready, fists up, words hanging leaping from their mouths. Silence? No. Alison McGhee
• When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence. Ansel Adams
• Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence. Pythagoras
• In silence you can’t hide anything … as you can in words. August Strindberg
• Words are the part of silence that can be spoken. Jeanette Winterson
• Language can only deal meaningfully with a special, restricted segment of reality. The rest, and it is presumably the much larger part, is silence. George Steiner
• If a word be worth one shekel, silence is worth two. Hebrew Proverb
• Silence is better than unmeaning words. Pythagoras
• Silence,  Stillness

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To experience reality, drop words and enter into the great silence

• Language can only deal meaningfully with a special, restricted segment of reality. The rest, and it is presumably the much larger part, is silence. George Steiner
• Enlightenment is the Journey from the head back to the heart, from words back to silence. Jock Brocas
• Stop the words now. Open the window in the center of your chest, and let the spirits fly in and out. Rumi
• Be not the slave of Words. Thomas Carlyle
• Silence

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Through silence, experience yourself prior to words

• A depth returns to your life. Things regain their newness, their freshness. And the greatest miracle is the experiencing of your essential self as prior to any words, thoughts, mental labels, and images. Eckhart Tolle
• Your true meaning cannot be grasped or captured by words. You can never be equated with any words, because you are prior to words. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• The greatest miracle is the experiencing of your essential self as prior to any words, thoughts, mental labels, and images. For this to happen, you need to disentangle your sense of I, of Beingness, from all the things it has become mixed up with, that is to say, identified with. Eckhart Tolle
• There is nothing to seek and nothing to find. You’re already enlightened, and all the words in the world won’t give you what you already have. The wise seeker, therefore, is concerned with one thing only: to become aware of what he already is, of the True Self within. Zen maxim

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When we’re still, our inner voice speaks with no words

• The inner voice is something which cannot be described in words. But sometimes we have a positive feeling that something in us prompts us to do a certain thing. The time when I learnt to recognise this voice was, I may say, the time when I started praying regularly. Mahatma Gandhi
• Intuition

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Our feelings often tell the truth better than words

• Words are the least reliable purveyor of Truth. Neale Donald Walsch
• Emotions

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God’s ultimate word will be silence

• The sound of ‘gentle stillness’ after all the thunder and wind have passed will be the ultimate Word from God. Jim Elliot
• God,  Silence

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The best prayers are often those without words

• Prayer can gradually become listening to God rather than talking to God. What does listening mean?  Listening means there is a field of bare, pure attention.  Listening does not mean that you are waiting for some answer, because then you are not really listening.  In listening you are not waiting for anything – there is just a field of pure attention. That is a much deeper prayer than any words.  True prayer is where prayer also becomes meditation.  Not even wanting an answer, it’s enough to be in the silence.  Sometimes an answer comes, or the thing becomes resolved, sometimes, suddenly. Listen.  Eckhart Tolle
• Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart. Mahatma Gandhi
• Praying without ceasing is not ritualized, nor are there even words. It is a constant state of awareness of oneness with God. Peace Pilgrim
• When you pray, rather let your heart be without words than your words without heart. John Bunyan
• When I worship, I would rather my heart be without words than my words be without heart. LaMar Boschman
• Prayer

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Knowing that thoughts and beliefs are just words makes them easier to let go of

• “When you understand,” Brandy says, “that what you’re telling is just a story. It isn’t happening anymore. When you realize the story you’re telling is just words, when you can just crumble up and throw your past in the trashcan,” Brandy says, “then we’ll figure out who you’re going to be.” Chuck Palahniuk
• See the thought for what it really is—a string of words—and to let it be there without fighting it. Russ Harris
• Thoughts are merely sounds, words, symbols or bits of language, so why declare war on them? Our aim here is to increase our self-awareness; to recognise when we’re fusing with our thoughts, and to catch ourselves when it happens. Russ Harris
• How successful you will be at anything is inexorably tied to the words and beliefs about yourself that you have stored in your subconscious mind. Shad Helmstetter
• Words are but the shining garments of Thought. Edwin Leibfreed
• Words are but the bannerets of a great army, a few bits of waving color here and there; thoughts are the main body of the footman that march unseen below. Henry Ward Beecher
• Words are the small change of thought. Jules Renard
• Letting go

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Some words are particularly important in life …

• 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.

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… especially in relationships

• When you and your wife have a disagreement, regardless of who’s wrong, apologize.Say, “I’m sorry I upset you. Would you forgive me?” These are healing, magical words. H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
• The four most important words in any marriage…”I’ll do the dishes.”
• Never forget the nine most important words of any family – I love you. You are beautiful.  Please forgive me. H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
• Principles for healthy relationships

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Some of the most important things in life can be expressed in a single word …

• All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope. Winston Churchill
• Freedom–no word was ever spoken that has held out greater hope, demanded greater sacrifice, needed more to be nurtured, blessed more the giver. . . or came closer to being God’s will on earth. Omar N. Bradley
• Health is a large word. It embraces not the body only, but the mind and spirit as well;… and not today’s pain or pleasure alone, but the whole being and outlook of a man.  James H. West
• Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man. Victor Hugo
• 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
• Few words carry more depth of meaning than “integrity.” The popular modern definition is one of being honest and having strong moral conviction, but its roots go much deeper than that. “Integrity” comes from the Latin “integer,” which, as you’ll recall from elementary math, refers to a whole number. Integrity of one’s word means our word is whole and complete.  Kevin Hall
• There is one word sums up The Law of Divine Oneness nicely – Namaste. What it means is I honor the place in you where the light of God abides. When I am in that place in me and you are in that place in you – there is one of us. Christin Sander
• One of the noblest words in our language is “grace,” defined as “unearned blessing.” We live by grace far more than by anything else.  Accordingly, I find that the one thing which I want to put into practice in my own life is the conscious and deliberate habit of finding someone to thank. Elton Trueblood
• Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet it is one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things. Elise Boulding
• Tsze-Kung asked, saying, is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life? The Master said, Is not Reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others. Confucius

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… some in two or three words

• There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One with Life. Being one with life is being one with Now. You then realize that you don’t live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer and you are the dance. Eckhart Tolle
• Until the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words – “Wait and hope.” Alexandre Dumas
• Two little words that make the difference—START NOW! Mary C. Crowley
• If you say a word, it leaps out and becomes the truth. I love you. I believe it. I believe I am loveable. How can something as fragile as a word build a whole world? Franny Billingsley

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No single word is more significant and powerful than “love”

• Love is our highest word and the synonym for God. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• One word frees us from all of the weight and pain of life: That word is love. Sophocles
• There is only one page left to write on. I will fill it with words of only one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love. Audrey Niffenegger
• The words “I love you,” spoken in moments of genuine appreciation, wonder, or caring arise from something perfectly pure within us – the capacity to open ourselves and say yes without reserve. John Welwood
• Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.
• Love

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“Yes” is another word that can have a powerful impact

• Perhaps the most positive word in the English language and the most conducive to continued growth in love is ‘Yes.’…A lover says ‘Yes’ to life, ‘Yes’ to joy, ‘Yes’ to knowledge, ‘Yes’ to people, ‘Yes’ to differences. Leo Buscaglia
• There’s power in the words “Yes, yes, I see exactly what you’re saying. You mean…….” This shows the other person you hear him/her. That’s all they usually want — to be validated. By agreeing with them, you gradually break down the other person’s anger.  Stephen Hopson
• The word “yes” sums up spirituality and sanity. An unconditional yes to what is frees us from the self- imposed suffering that results when we fear facing the givens of life. When pain enters our life, we activate our potential for facing it without complaint, and we gain compassion for others who also suffer. A yes to this fourth given frees us from the suffering that comes from useless protest.  David Richo

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No two words are more powerful than “I am …”

• I AM – the two most powerful words in the world, for whatever we put after them becomes our reality. Susan Howson
• The words “I am…” are potent words; be careful what you hitch them to. The thing you’re claiming has a way of reaching back and claiming you. A L Kitselman
• Use the great command that calls forth creative power: I am. “I am” is the strongest creative statement in the universe. Whatever you think, whatever you say, after the words “I am” sets in motion those experiences, calls them forth, brings them to you. Neale Donald Walsch

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Some words are particularly comforting and affirming

• Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and repeat to yourself, the most comforting words of all: this, too, shall pass. Ann Landers
• In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on. Robert Frost
• I bring you the gift of these four words: I believe in you. Blaise Pascal
• “Once upon a time,” he said out loud to the darkness. He said these words because they were the best, the most powerful words that he knew and just the saying of them comforted him. Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux
• Affirmation,  Encouragement

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Some words, although short, require a lot of thought to say

• The oldest, shortest words – “yes’ and “no” – are those which require the most thought. Pythagoras
• Yes and No are very short words to say, but we should think for some length of time before saying them.

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Some words are particularly lovely

• Sara: It’s such a nice sounding word for what it means: a fortunate accident. From the movie Serendipity (2001)
• Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. Henry James
• The two most beautiful words in the English language are: Check Enclosed. Dorothy Parker

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Some words in life are particularly sad, especially those expressing regret …

• For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, “It might have been.” John Greenleaf Whittier
• Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, “It might have been. Kurt Vonnegut
• If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world. Mercedes Lackey
• Regret; The saddest word in the English language. Tonya Hurley
• In that moment I understood that the cruelest words in the universe are “if only.” Lisa See
• Regret

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… and those expressing farewell and loss

• Goodbye, goodbye, I hate the word. Solitude has long since turned brown and withered, sitting bitter in my mouth and heavy in my veins.  M. Grenon
• The saddest word in the language. In any language. Mark Slouka
• But, reader, there is no comfort in the word “farewell,” even if you say it in French. “Farewell” is a word that, in any language, is full of sorrow. It is a word that promises absolutely nothing. Kate DiCamillo
• Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been – A sound which makes us linger; – yet – farewell! Lord Byron
• It’s the emptiest and yet the fullest of all human messages: ‘Good-bye. Kurt Vonnegut
• That bitter word, which closed all earthly friendships and finished every feast of love, farewell! Robert Pollok
• I do not say goodbye. I believe that’s one of the bullshitiest words ever invented. It’s not like you’re given the choice to say bad-bye, or awful-bye, or couldn’t-care-less-about-you-bye. Everytime you leave, it’s supposed to be a good one. John Green
• Loss,  Saying goodbye

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Some words can be damaging, even life destroying

• The most life-destroying word of all is the word tomorrow. Robert Kiyosaki
• I believe that “should” is one of the most damaging words in our language. Every time we use should, we are, in effect, saying ‘wrong.’ Either we are wrong or we were wrong or we are going to be wrong. I don’t think we need more wrongs in our life. We need to have more freedom of choice. I would like to take the word should and remove it from the vocabulary forever. I’d replace it with the word could. Could gives us a choice, and we are never wrong. Louise Haye
• Remember that the six most expensive words in business are: ‘We’ve always done it that way.’ Catherine DeVry
• The most damaging phrase in the language is: ‘It’s always been done that way.’ Grace Murray Hopper

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Some words have become misaligned and degraded

• What right have you to take the word wealth, which originally meant well-being, and degrade and narrow it by confining it to certain sorts of material objects measured by money. John Ruskin
• Ambition is not a dirty word. Piss on compromise. Go for the throat. Steven Erikson
• There is such a thing as righteous judgment, but it seems that lately the word ‘judgment’ has become a curse word, period. The issue isn’t whether or not we’re insightful enough to avoid being judgmental, but whether or not we’re secure enough to accept being judged. It is inevitable for every conscious human being to judge. It may spring from insight and experience and sincerity, and in such cases, it is quite beneficial on the receiving end. Criss Jami

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Some words have become dirty

• Exercise is a dirty word. Every time I hear it I wash my mouth out with chocolate. Charles M. Schulz
• I doubt if there is one married person on Earth who can be objective about divorce. It is always a threat, admittedly or not, and such a dire threat that it is almost a dirty word. Nora Johnson

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In life, some words are best substituted for others …

• To be happy, drop the words “if only” and substitute instead the words “next time.” Smiley Blanton
• Instead of using the word “problem”, try substituting the word “opportunity.” H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
• We would like you to release the word “achieve” or “earn” from your vocabulary and from your understanding, altogether, and we would like you to replace those words with the word “allow”. You’re wanting to allow your Well- being, not achieve it. It’s not something that you need to earn. All you have to do is decide what it is you would like to experience, and then allow it in order to achieve it. It isn’t something you have to struggle for or try for. You are all worthy beings. You are deserving of this Well- being. Abraham-Hicks

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… while some words should be taken out of the vocabulary altogether

• For God’s sake, let’s take the word ‘possess’ and put a brick round its neck and drown it … We can’t possess one another. We can only give and hazard all we have. Dorothy L. Sayers
• Yes, you can be a dreamer and a doer too, if you will remove one word from your vocabulary: impossible. Robert Schuller
• Resist the urge to use the word “but.” You will want to.  You will want to explain your actions or your words, whatever it is that has caused the other person pain; don’t do it.  The word “but” negates all the words that came before it.  Chris Jordan

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Sometimes we use more words than necessary just to look clever

• I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying. Oscar Wilde
• Intellectual: A man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.  Dwight D Eisenhower
• Talk, talk, talk: the utter and heartbreaking stupidity of words. William Faulkner

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Fools are rarely without words …

• The thoughtless are rarely wordless. Howard W. Newton
• A fool and his words are soon parted. William Shenstone
• Words are wise men’s counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools. Thomas Hobbes
• Foolishness,  Stupidity

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… and are usually what gives a fool away

• I suppose that people, using themselves and each other so much by words, are at least consistent in attributing wisdom to a still tongue. William Faulkner
• You gave yourself away, word by word, every time you opened your trap to speak. Don Delillo
• For one word a man is often deemed to be wise, and for one word he is often deemed to be foolish. We should be careful indeed what we say. Confucius

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Sometimes we mince our words

• For fear of not being accepted, we tailor our personality, mince our words, and carve our opinions to fit in. Danielle LaPorte

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Sometimes we have to eat our words

• In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet. Winston Churchill
• I have never developed indigestion from eating my words. Winston Churchill
• Taste your words before you spit them out. You might need to eat them later. Rain Bojangles
• It is easier to swallow angry words than to have to eat them.
• 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.
• Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them. Broderick Crawford
• Please God, make my words today sweet and tender, for tomorrow I may have to eat them.

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Words can be the best aphrodisiac …

• For women, the best aphrodisiacs are words. The G-spot is in the ears. He who looks for it below there is wasting his time. Isabel Allende
• I think a man’s “wordplay” can be so fucking sexy!!! I love a good mind fuck!! Junnita Jackson

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… or can they?

• The next time you try to seduce anyone, don’t do it with talk, with words. Women know more about words than men ever will. And they know how little they can ever possibly mean. William Faulkner

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Thoughts on spelling

• I don’t give a damn for man that can spell a word only one way. Mark Twain
• It is a damn poor mind indeed which can’t think of at least two ways to spell any word. Andrew Jackson
• If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know? Steven Wright

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Thoughts on having the final word

• An apology is a good way to have the last word.
• I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Always having to have the last word is a bad trait. Pisses people off. Laurell K. Hamilton
• The last word is the most dangerous of infernal machines; and husband and wife should no more fight to get it than they would struggle for the possession of a lighted bomb-shell. Douglas Jerrold

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Thoughts on new words

• If I were to describe myself in one word, a new word should be made.
• Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most. Fyodor Dostoevsky
• The poet cannot invent new words every time, of course. He uses the words of the tribe. But the handling of the word, the accent, a new articulation, renew them. Eugene Ionesco
• A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion. Ludwig Wittgenstein
• Give the people a new word and they think they have a new fact. Willa Cather
• If the word doesn’t exist, invent it; but first be sure it doesn’t exist. Charles Baudelaire

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Strong words

• Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause. Victor Hugo
• Strong words are required for weak principles. Doug Horton
• Strong words outlast the paper they are written upon. Joseph Bruchac
• I like good strong words that mean something. Louisa May Alcott

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Poetry and words

• Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.   Edgar Allan Poe
• Poetry involves the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words. Vladimir Nabokov
• Prose, words in their best order. Poetry, the best words in the best order. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• If we can discover the meaning in the trilling of a frog, perhaps we may understand why it is for us not merely noise but a song of poetry and emotion. Adrian Forsyth

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Word in dictionaries

• 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
• Trying to use words to clarify reality is like trying to live in a dictionary. Ikkyu Jones
• If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know? Steven Wright
• They’ve taken the word “gullible” out of the dictionary.
• I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything. Steven Wright
• A definition is enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words. Samuel Butler

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• 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.
• Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.
• You’re old when your actions creak louder than your words. Milton Berle
• He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met. Abraham Lincoln
• He’s a man of few words. The trouble is he keeps repeating them.
• How clever you are, my dear! You never mean a single word you say. Oscar Wilde
• How do you get a sweet little 80-year-old lady to say the F word? Get another sweet little 80- year-old lady to yell *BINGO*!
• The two most beautiful words in the English language are: Check Enclosed. Dorothy Parker
• I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying. Oscar Wilde
• I’m a charmng coward; I fight with words. Carl Reiner
• In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet. Winston Churchill
• No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. Wilkie Collins
• Quotations: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.  Ambrose Bierce
• She talks at 60 words a minute with gusts up to 120.
• Taste your words before you spit them out. You might need to eat them later. Rain Bojangles
• The longest sentence you can form with two words is: I do. H. L. Mencken
• The four most important words in any marriage…”I’ll do the dishes.”
• The three words a man most hates to hear during sex: “Is it in yet?”
• Talking always gets in the way of a good honest conversation. Greg Vovos
• I like the word “indolence.” It makes my laziness seem classy. Bern Williams
• There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep. Homer
• They’ve taken the word “gullible” out of the dictionary.
• This is one of the disadvantages of wine: it makes a man mistake words for thought.  Samuel Johnson
• Writing- the profession in which you stare at a computer screen, stare out the window, type a few words, then curse repeatedly. Drew Goodman
• Whose cruel idea was it for the word “lisp” to have an “s” in it? Steven Wright
• Why is abbreviation such a long word?
• When writing a novel, that’s pretty much entirely what life turns into: ‘House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day. Neil Gaiman
• What’s the three words you never want to hear while making love? ‘Honey, I’m home!” Ken Hammond
• Virus: A Latin word used by doctors, meaning “Your guess is as good as mine.”   
• Vegetarian: Indian word for lousy hunter.
• Some people have a way with words, and other people…oh, uh, not have way. Steve Martin
• I want to create a seventeen-syllable word that encompasses the human condition, and then use that word to form the world’s most perfect haiku. Jarod Kintz
• Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much. Eckhart Tolle
• Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them. Broderick Crawford
• Everything that goes into my mouth seems to make me fat, everything that comes out of my mouth embarrasses me. Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez
• I want to be able to type 60 words per minute without repeatedly typing one-letter words like “I” or “A.”Jarod Kintz
• Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is ‘elephant’. Charles Chaplin
• A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the word you first thought of. Burt Bacharach
• I can read lips. Especially if they have words tattooed on them. Jarod Kintz
• The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech. Clifton Fadiman
• Never use big words where a diminutive one will suffice.
• What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t work? A stick! Kirchenbaum
• If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know? Steven Wright
• Never use a big word when a little filthy one will do. Johnny Carson
• When I look at you, the wheels of time stand still vs. Your face could stop a clock
• I’ve been asked to say a couple of words about my husband, Fang. How about short and cheap? Phyllis Diller
• Fine words! I wonder where you stole them. Jonathan Swift
• He doesn’t know the meaning of the word fear, but then again he doesn’t know the meaning of most words. Bobby Bowden
• A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous. Ingrid Bergman
• Be careful of your thoughts, they may become words at any moment.
• An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.  Dwight D. ‘Ike’ Eisenhower
• Argument: An exchange of words between people with diametrically opposed views, all of whom know that they are right.   Kevin Boddington
• About the only thing you can say for his constipation of ideas is his diarrhea of words.  George Jean Nathan
• Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.  Wendell Johnson
• After-Dinner Speaker: A person who only has a few words to say, but seldom stops when he has said them.
• Actions speak louder than words…but words sometimes get all the attention. Susan Gale
• Actions lie louder than words.  Bob Wells
• A newspaper consists of just the same number of words, whether there be any news in it or not. Henry Fielding
• Don’t gobblefunk around with words. Roald Dahl
• I’m a woman of very few words, but lots of action. Mae West
• A fast word about oral contraception. I asked a girl to go to bed with me, she said ‘no’. Woody Allen
• A drunk man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts. Steve Fergosi
• Words can only hurt you if you try to read them. Don’t play their game! Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller), Zoolander
• The word “good” has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man. K. Chesterton
• I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything. Steven Wright
• I know all those words, but that sentence makes no sense to me. Matt Groening
• Jesus is just a word I use to swear with. Richard Harris
• Never use a long word where a diminutive one will suffice.
• The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help. Ronald Reagan
• The word aerobics comes from two Greek words: aero, meaning “ability to,” and bics, meaning “withstand tremendous boredom. Dave Barry

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