Etymology Quotes

• Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit.

  Salman Rushdie

  Dust, Names, Sound

  Salman Rushdie (1989). “The Satanic Verses”, New York, N.Y. : Viking

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• The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.

  Giambattista Vico

  Communication, Language Words, Order

  Giambattista Vico, Thomas Goddard Bergin (1948). “The new science of Giambattista Vico”

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• Do not lose your enthusiasm. In its Greek etymology, the word enthusiasm means, "God in us."

  Ken Burns

  Mean, Greek, Enthusiasm

  "Ken Burns to Stanford Grads: Trump Is 'an Insult to Our History'". time.com. June 13, 2016.

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• If we don't understand how metaphor works we will misunderstand most of what we read in the Bible. No matter how carefully we parse our Hebrew and Greek sentences, no matter how precisely we use our dictionaries and trace our etymologies, no matter how exactly we define the words on the page, if we do not appreciate the way a metaphor works we will never comprehend the meaning of the text.

  Eugene H. Peterson

  Appreciate, Greek, Use

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• Etymology: from Latin ad-, "to" + visum, past participle of videre, "to see". Advice is what you get from your parents when you are growing up, and from your children when you are growing old.

  Evan Esar

  Children, Growing Up, Latin

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• If you actually look at the etymology of the word 'hallucination', what it's come to mean in English is a delusion. But what it really means in the original language is to wander in the mind. That's the meaning of 'hallucination', to wander in the mind.

  Terence McKenna

  Mean, Mind, Looks

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• I have observed gratitude to be a principle, that bears the smallest share in the hearts of those where it ought to be most strongly resident, so that I begin to imagine one half of the world don't understand the real etymology of the word.

  Charlotte Charke

  Gratitude, Real, Heart

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• The word ‘sin’ is derived from the Indo-European root ‘es-,’ meaning ‘to be.’ When I discovered this etymology, I intuitively understood that for a [person] trapped in patriarchy, which is the religion of the entire planet, ‘to be’ in the fullest sense is ‘to sin'.

  Mary Daly

  Roots, Sin, Planets

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• Democracy is something America has never really practiced. Because the Founding Fathers hated two things: monarchy and democracy. They wanted a republic, a replica of the Roman or Venetian republics. They didn't even like the etymology of the word "democracy."

  Gore Vidal

  Father, Two, America

  "The End of Gore Vidal". Interview with Lila Azam Zanganeh, www.guernicamag.com. August 15, 2012.

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• Prayer or not, I want to believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary, it is possible for anyone to find that one special person. That person to spend Christmas with or grow old with or just to take a nice silly walk in Central Park with. Somebody who wouldn't judge another for the prepositions they dangle, or their run-on sentences, and who in turn wouldn't be judged for the snobbery of their language etymology inclinations.

  Rachel Cohn

  Running, Prayer, Nice

  Rachel Cohn, David Levithan (2010). “Dash & Lily's Book of Dares”, p.72, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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