Power Of Language Quotes

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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, life and the instrument of culture, the instrument of domination and liberation.

  Angela Carter

  Culture, Language And Power, Instruments

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

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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, Language And Power, Concentration

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

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

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Positive, Wise, Wisdom

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

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Communication, Cities, Language And Power

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

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• It is said that life and death are under the power of language.

  Helene Cixous

  Life And Death, Language, Said

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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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• 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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• I think that metaphor really is a key to explaining thought and language. The human mind comes equipped with an ability to penetrate the cladding of sensory appearance and discern the abstract construction underneath - not always on demand, and not infallibly, but often enough and insightfully enough to shape the human condition. Our powers of analogy allow us to apply ancient neural structures to newfound subject matter, to discover hidden laws and systems in nature, and not least, to amplify the expressive power of language itself.

  Steven Pinker

  Thinking, Law, Keys

  Steven Pinker (2007). “The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature”, p.282, Penguin

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• Right around my first year of college - I remember "Song of Solomon," by Toni Morrison, just moved me tremendously. The power of language and how it can peel back truths, bring things to the surface. So I learned a lot from fiction.

  Barack Obama

  Song, College, Years

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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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• One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment.

  Hart Crane

  Inspirational, Writing, Men

  Hart Crane (1965). “Letters, 1916-1932”

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• Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.

  Lily Tomlin

  Funny, Humorous, Book

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• The power of language, it seems to me, is the only kind of power a writer is entitled to.

  Cynthia Ozick

  Writing, Language And Power, Kind

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• A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.

  W. H. Auden

  Love, Passion, Language Words

  "Poets at Work" by W. H. Auden, (p. 170), 1948.

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

  Francis Asbury

  Faith, Language And Power, Gracious

  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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• One of the benefits of being a mature well-educated woman is that you're not afraid of expletives. And you have no fear to put a fool in his place. That's the power of language and experience. You can learn a lot from Shakespeare.

  Judi Dench

  Benefits, Fool, Language

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

  Leon Wieseltier

  Language And Power, Language, Needed

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

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• Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power.

  Paul Engle

  Reading Poetry, Language And Power, Ordinary

  New York Times, February 17, 1957.

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