Meaning of words quotes:

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  • The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. -- Philip K. Dick
  • The investigation of the meaning of words is the beginning of education. -- Antisthenes
  • Once we have learned to read, meaning of words can somehow register without consciousness. -- Katherine Mansfield
  • In love, we worry more about the meaning of silences than the meaning of words. -- Mason Cooley
  • It is nonetheless the best usage that decides the meaning of words. -- Wilson Follett
  • Writing and performing should deepen the meaning of words, should illuminate, transfix and transform. -- bell hooks
  • How could an argument soothe or settle a controversy when every word is a nest for a bird of doubt? (meaning of words as inferences) -- Edmond Jabes
  • If we accept that there is no such thing as 'zero risk' then we should not spin the meaning of words with assertions such as 'all accidents are preventable'. -- Rob Long
  • If language is to be of any use to us, then we ought to try and preserve the meaning of words, and 'god' historically has not meant the laws of nature. -- Steven Weinberg
  • Like psychoanalysis, constitutional jurisprudence has become a game without rules. By defying the plain meaning of words, ignoring context and history, and using a little ingenuity, you can make the Constitution mean anything you like. -- Joseph Sobran
  • For it was not so much that by means of words I came to a complete understanding of things, as that from things I somehow had an experience which enabled me to follow the meaning of words. -- Plutarch
  • Ideas improve. The meaning of words participates in the improvement. Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an author's phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with the right idea. -- Guy Debord
  • The world of public discourse - political, social, diplomatic, commercial - has so corrupted language that we are rightly more suspicious of the meaning of words than we are convinced of their veracity. Language has been turned on its head. -- Deena Metzger
  • 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. -- Frances Wright
  • What do we mean by "knowledge" or "understanding"? And how do billions of neurons achieve them? These are complete mysteries. Admittedly, cognitive neuroscientists are still very vague about the exact meaning of words like "understand," "think," and indeed the word "meaning" itself. -- Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
  • Language can still be an adventure if we remember that words can make a kind of melody. In novels, news stories, memoirs and even to-the-point memos, music is as important as meaning. In fact, music can drive home the meaning of words. -- Constance Hale
  • The meaning of words had no longer the same relation to things... Reckless daring was held to be loyal courage; prudent delay was the excuse of a coward; moderation was the disguise of unmanly weakness; to know everything was to do nothing. Frantic energy was the true quality of man. -- Thucydides
  • For there have risen many who have given to the plain words of Holy Writ some arbitrary interpretation of their own, instead of its true and only sense, and this in defiance of the clear meaning of words. Heresy lies in the sense assigned, not in the word written; the guilt is that of the expositor, not of the text. -- Hilary of Poitiers
  • Contemporary poetry ... tries to transform the sign back into meaning: its ideal, ultimately, would be to reach not the meaning of words, but the meaning of things themselves. This is why it clouds the language, increases as much as it can the abstractness of the concept and the arbitrariness of the sign and stretches to the limit the link between signifier and signified. -- Roland Barthes
  • The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is subject, the want of a universal language which renders translation necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility of willful alteration, are themselves evidences that human language, whether in speech or print, cannot be the vehicle of the Word of God. -- Thomas Paine
  • The language of friendship is not words but meanings. -- Henry David Thoreau
  • How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words! -- Samuel Adams
  • Banal words function as a feeble phenomena that fall into their own mental bogs of meaning. -- Robert Smithson
  • During the '70s I was interested in words and meaning as a way of making art. -- Sol LeWitt
  • He doesn't know the meaning of the word fear, but then again he doesn't know the meaning of most words. -- Bobby Bowden
  • The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning - in other words, of absurdity - the more energetically meaning is sought. -- Vaclav Havel
  • There is something like an explosion in the meaning of certain words: they have a greater value than their meaning in the dictionary. -- Marcel Duchamp
  • Truth is something which can't be told in a few words. Those who simplify the universe only reduce the expansion of its meaning. -- Anais Nin
  • But even in the Christian religion, much of its real meaning is hidden by words that are misleading and symbols that but few understand. -- Ernest Holmes
  • I am a hidden meaning made to defy. The grasp of words, and walk away With free will and destiny. As living, revolutionary clay. -- Muhammad Iqbal
  • Nothing can express the aim and meaning of our work better than the profound words of St. Augustine - 'Beauty is the splendor of Truth.' -- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
  • Words do not change their meanings so drastically in the course of centuries as, in our minds, names do in the course of a year or two. -- Marcel Proust
  • Uncritical semantics is the myth of a museum in which the exhibits are meanings and the words are labels. To switch languages is to change the labels. -- Willard Van Orman Quine
  • There's something so wonderful about writing in rhyme where it isn't just the meaning of the words, it's the music to the words and the shape and the sound. -- Gary Ross
  • Providing, meaning to a mass of unrelated needs, ideas, words and pictures - it is the designer's job to select and fit this material together and make it interesting. -- Paul Rand
  • I do love perusing the dictionary to find how many words I don't use - words that have specific, sharp, focused meaning. I also love the sound of certain words. I love the sound of the word pom-pom. -- Geoffrey Rush
  • I have a problem when people say something's real or not real, or normal or abnormal. The meaning of those words for me is very personal and subjective. I've always been confused and never had a clearcut understanding of the meaning of those kinds of words. -- Tim Burton
  • Words have meaning, type has spirit. -- Paula Scher
  • Because words have deep meaning, Tweets have power. -- Germany Kent
  • Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn't change -- Antonin Scalia
  • Weigh the meaning and look not at the words. -- Ben Jonson
  • When words lose their meaning, people lose their liberty. -- Confucius
  • Without context words and actions have no meaning at all -- Gregory Bateson
  • Words rich in meaning can be cheap in sound effects. -- Dejan Stojanovic
  • Wisdom is not in words; Wisdom is meaning within words. -- Khalil Gibran
  • Through words to the meaning of thoughts with no words. -- Dejan Stojanovic
  • Words may show a man's wit but actions his meaning. -- Benjamin Franklin
  • Somewhere we know that without silence, words lose their meaning. -- Henri Nouwen
  • We allow words to obscure the interpretation of the deeper meaning. -- Stephen Young
  • I like patterns in words. I'm not really interested in meaning. -- Roddy Woomble
  • Get rid of words and meaning, and there is still poetry. -- Yang Wanli
  • Don't look for meaning in the words. Listen to the silences. -- Samuel Beckett
  • ...words are not only meaning but music and magic and power. -- Frederick Buechner
  • The meaning of the words is necessary and not their extent. -- Sorin Cerin
  • Fine words lack all meaning when we are confronted by real suffering. -- Paulo Coelho
  • Your words and my words are the same, but not our meaning. -- Mason Cooley
  • Because your question searches for deep meaning, I shall explain in simple words -- Dante Alighieri
  • Get rid of words, and get rid of meaning, and still there is poetry. -- Yang Wanli
  • The words of genius have a wider meaning than the thought that prompted them. -- George Eliot
  • Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words. -- Zhuangzi
  • Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects. -- Blaise Pascal
  • The photograph, after all, is just a photograph. Words will determine its meaning and status. -- Wright Morris
  • Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning. -- Benjamin Franklin
  • Great communicators don't just hear the words. Great communicators hear the meaning behind the words -- Simon Sinek
  • To happy folkAll heaviest words no more of meaning bearThan far-off bells saddening the Summer air. -- William Morris
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  • Words are not simple things: they take unto themselves, as they have through time, power and meaning ... -- Fay Weldon
  • The painting rises from the brushstrokes as a poem rises from the words. The meaning comes later. -- Joan Miro
  • In the Trump language, words change their meaning day by day depending on his own political needs. -- E. J. Dionne
  • The word enchant comes from the Latin 'incantare', meaning to sing or chant magical words or sounds. -- Jonathan Goldman
  • Words of mankind limited in meaning to describe the enchantment that illuminates from aura of a dancer. -- Shah Asad Rizvi
  • Be able to describe anything visual, such as a street scene, in words that convey your meaning. -- Marilyn vos Savant
  • In the uttermost meaning of the words, thought is devout, and devotion is thought. Deep calls unto deep. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Madness, in its wild, untamable words, proclaims its own meaning; in its chimeras, it utters its secret truth. -- Michel Foucault
  • Science repudiates philosophy. In other words, it has never cared to justify its truth or explain its meaning. -- Alfred North Whitehead
  • I don't like to treat words and sounds like objects. You have to penetrate deeply into their meaning. -- Eyvind Kang
  • In nearly all ballads, the words set the mood and meaning, while the music intensifies or enhances them. -- Kate Smith
  • I am convinced that abstract form, imagery, color, texture, and material convey meaning equal to or greater than words. -- Katherine McCoy
  • Just as there are polysyllabic words that say very little, so there are also monosyllabic words of infinite meaning. -- Georg C. Lichtenberg
  • In a poem the words should be as pleasing to the ear as the meaning is to the mind. -- Marianne Moore
  • Isn't it funny the way some combinations of words can give you--almost apart from their meaning--a thrill like music? -- C. S. Lewis
  • We can't change the world by shouting, but our words can have meaning if we give them enough respect. -- Evan Meekins
  • Is there a meaning to music? Yes. Can you state in so many words what the meaning is? No. -- Aaron Copland
  • The things she most wanted to tell him would lose their meaning the moment she put them into words. -- Haruki Murakami
  • Today we continue a never ending journey to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time. -- Barack Obama
  • Maps were so much easier than words. Words had a way of getting muddled, or meaning two things at once. -- Lesley Howarth
  • Words have meaning beyond the obvious. Words have consequences beyond intentions. Civil words align risk and reward of such unknowns. -- John R. Dallas Jr.
  • Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is "established by the State". -- Antonin Scalia
  • I guess I'm attracted to more archaic words because they can be imbued with more meaning, because their definition is elusive. -- Andrew Bird
  • Better than a meaningless story of a thousand words is a single word of deep meaning which, when heard, produces peace. -- Gautama Buddha
  • And if my mind breaks up In all so many ways I know the meaning of The words, "I love you -- Cat Stevens
  • Silence has a myriad of meanings. In the theater, silence is an absence of words, but never an absence of meaning. -- Sanford Meisner
  • He doesn't know the meaning of the word fear. Of course, there are lots of other words he doesn't know either. -- Sid Gillman
  • I aim to be translucent, so you don't notice the words, just their meaning. I haven't much insight into people's motivations. -- Ken Follett
  • Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning. -- Maya Angelou
  • That's mostly what the Internet is, just passing the time. But unfortunately you are dealing with words that can have meaning. -- Tom Wolfe
  • Sometimes when you're making songs you just make sounds, and the sounds slowly mutate and evolve into actual words that have meaning. -- Tom Waits
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  • Meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words ' God can'. -- C. S. Lewis
  • An artist who makes pictures that look good but express nothing is like a writer whose words sound good but have no meaning. -- Gerald Brommer
  • A good many of the special words of business seem designed more to express the user's dreams than to express a precise meaning. -- E. B. White
  • And of course the word love has many shades of meaning, as do many, many of the words in our living, breathing language -- Mary Balogh
  • Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure. -- Henri Nouwen
  • Speak English!' said the Eaglet. 'I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and I don't believe you do either! -- Lewis Carroll
  • Speak louder than the words before you, and give them meaning no one else has found. The role we play is so important. -- Ian Axel
  • I don't think that the spoken words solve everything. Sometimes silence delivers truer feelings while the words can distort the meaning in some situations. -- Kim Ki-duk
  • If language is not rectified, words do not correspond to meaning, and if words do not correspond to meaning, our deeds cannot be accomplished. -- Confucius
  • The word Universe is made up of two Latin words- uni (meaning "one") and versus (meaning "turned into"). It literally means "one turned into. -- Chris Prentiss
  • The Americans have many virtues, but they have not Faith and Hope. I know no two words whose meaning is more lost sight of. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • You are alone,So alone,You speak back to silence.People call it loneliness,You call it solitude,Different words,Meaning the same pain. -- Jenim Dibie
  • Art is really about how you capture different things you see around you and bring them into forms and words and shapes and meaning. -- Chath Piersath
  • Your true meaning cannot be grasped or captured by words. You can never be equated with any words, because you are prior to words. -- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
  • A song is a favorite song, not because the singer can hit and hold a high note, but because of the words, their meaning. -- Taylor Swift
  • My words are like a ship, and the sea is their meaning. Come to me and I will take you to the depths of spirit. -- Rumi
  • The words in prose ought to express the intended meaning, and no more; if they attract attention to themselves, it is, in general, a fault. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  • 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
  • Wherever you find a sentence musically worded, of true rhythm and melody in the words, there is something deep and good in the meaning also. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  • What interests me is love, sex, death, cruelty, compassion and the desire for meaning in an apparently godless universe. In other words the human condition. -- Glen Duncan
  • The power of nature exists in its silence. Human words cannot encode the meaning because human language has access only to the shadow of meaning. -- Malidoma Patrice Some
  • Abortion is the Antichrist's demonic parody of the eucharist. That's why it uses the same holy words, "This is my body," with the blasphemous opposite meaning. -- Peter Kreeft
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