Language And Power Quotes

• Language is power, life and the instrument of culture, the instrument of domination and liberation.

  Angela Carter

  Culture, Instruments, Domination

  Angela Carter (1998). “Shaking a Leg: Collected Writings”, Penguin Group USA

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  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

  Honesty, Integrity, Writing

  1847; quoted by propagandist and language maven William Safire, New York Times Magazine, 13 December 1998.

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• Language is power, in ways more literal than most people think. When we speak, we exercise the power of language to transform reality. Why don't more of us realize the connection between language and power?

  Julia Penelope

  Exercise, Thinking, Reality

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• But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

  George Orwell

  Inspirational, Life, Political Language

  "Politics and the English Language" (1946)

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• The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Funny, Humorous

  Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain on Common Sense: Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America's Most-Revered Humorist”, p.13, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• The limits of my language means the limits of my world.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Wisdom, Communication, Philosophical

  Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Proposition 5.6 (1922)

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• Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Inspirational, Cute, Sad

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• Language exerts hidden power, like the moon on the tides.

  Rita Mae Brown

  Memorable, Moon, Tides

  Rita Mae Brown (2011). “Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers' Manual”, p.58, Bantam

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• Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Communication, Cities, Stones

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1875). “Letters and Social Aims”, p.160

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• Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Business, Communication, Past

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1840). “The Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Prose and Verse: Complete in One Volume”, p.313

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  Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Powerful, Reading, Communication

  Speech, 14 Feb. 1923, in The Times 15 Feb. 1923

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• 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.

  C. S. Lewis

  Communication, Writing, Mean

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• By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach.

  Winston Churchill

  Kindness, Inspiration, Generosity

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  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

  Heart, Men, Fire

  "The Name of the Wind". Book by Patrick Rothfuss, 2007.

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• Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Positive, Wise, Wisdom

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• Poetry is above all a concentration of the power of language, which is the power of our ultimate relationship to everything in the universe.

  Adrienne Rich

  Relationship, Concentration, Power Of Language

  Adrienne Rich (1995). “On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978”, p.137, W. W. Norton & Company

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• I was wondering why I was put in prison for working in an African language when I had not been put in prison for working in English. So really, in prison I started thinking more seriously about the relation between language and power.

  Ngugi wa Thiong'o

  Thinking, Wonder, Prison

  Source: www.alternet.org

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• Language is the soul of intellect, and reading is the essential process by which that intellect is cultivated beyond the commonplace experiences of everyday life.

  Charles Scribner IV

  Reading, Aquariums, Soul

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• Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

  Joseph Addison

  Inspirational, Education, Book

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1837). “The Tatler: With Notes and a General Index ; Complete in One Volume”, p.270

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• Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Inspirational, Business, Past

  "New Statesman and Nation" Magazine, July 15, 1933.

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• There are times when the power of language is not the power that is needed.

  Leon Wieseltier

  Language, Power Of Language, Needed

  "American Liberals and the Streets of Cairo". newrepublic.com. January 29, 2011.

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• 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.

  Life, Graduation, Hate

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.119, Beacon Press

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• Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.

  Roland Barthes

  Desire, Skins, Fingers

  "A Lover's Discourse (Talking)". Bok by Roland Barthes, 1977.

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• My words fly up, my thoughts remain below

  Claudius

  Hamlet And Ophelia, Hamlet Revenge, Important Hamlet

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• God is gracious beyond the power of language to describe.

  Francis Asbury

  Faith, Gracious, Power Of Language

  Francis Asbury (1821). “The Journal of the Rev. Francis Asbury, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church: From August 7, 1771, to December 7, 1815”, p.232

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