Vocabulary Quotes - Page 11

• One reason why it has become harder to promote the beneficial side of emotions such as anger is that the moral vocabulary of good and bad has been replaced by the self-help lexicon of positive and negative thinking.

  Julian Baggini

  Thinking, Self, Negative

  "Calm? Why should I be calm?" by Julian Baggini, www.theguardian.com. March 2, 2009.

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• I suppose that I inherited the same vocabulary and world view as most black Christians do, most Christians in general, to be sure. It was heterosexist in the sense that it took the heterosexual orientation as the norm from which to start as the given. And everything that fell outside of that was not acceptable.

  Michael Eric Dyson

  Christian, Views, Black

  "Gay Marriage Divides Black Religious Leaders". Interview with Michel Martin, www.npr.org. May 15, 2009.

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• We can shape events in each other's brains with exquisite precision.

  Steven Pinker

  Brain, Events, Shapes

  Steven Pinker (2010). “The Language Instinct: How The Mind Creates Language”, p.1, Harper Collins

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• It’ll be the ballot or it’ll be the bullet. It’ll be liberty or it’ll be death. And if you’re not ready to pay that price don’t use the word freedom in your vocabulary.

  Malcolm X

  Liberty, Use, Pay

  "The Ballot or The Bullet (Detroit Version)". Malcolm X's speech at a meeting sponsored by the Congress for Racial Equality in Detroit, Michigan, April 12, 1964.

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• Difference of thoughts will produce difference of language. He that thinks with more extent than another, will want words of a larger meaning; he that thinks with more subtilty will seek for terms of more nice discrimination; and where is the wonder, since words are but the images of things, that he who never knew the original should not know the copies?

  Samuel Johnson

  Nice, Thinking, Differences

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: with Murphy's essay”, p.589

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• Linguistics is a good way of defining the culture of a brand. The vocabulary used by sports and lifestyle brands - running, fitness, training, motorsports - is all about functionality, whereas the vocabulary of the luxury business - handbags, ready-to-wear - is all about the product.

  Francois-Henri Pinault

  Sports, Running, Luxury

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• I probably have a 20,000-word vocabulary. I'll match my wits with anyone on literature, science and the arts.

  Mike Tyson

  Art, Literature, Wit

  "Tyson: 'My whole life has been a waste'". Interview with Jon Saraceno, usatoday30.usatoday.com. June 2, 2005.

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• Gypsy dance is never just to be dancing. Instead it seems to be a part of an immense and significant non-verbal vocabulary of Gypsy communication and behavior. It is at the heart of an essential transformation, a transcended state, an escape from the realities of their daily lives to a more satisfying state of mind.

  Kate Magowan

  Dance, Communication, Heart

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• It is the relentless onward march of the texters, the SMS (Short Message Service) vandals who are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours 800 years ago. They are destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary. And they must be stopped.

  John Humphrys

  Years, Sms, Messages

  "I h8 txt msgs: How texting is wrecking our language" by John Humphrys, www.dailymail.co.uk. September 24, 2007.

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• Science and technology contribute to the fast-expanding vocabularies of all living civilized tongues at a faster rate than all other fields of human endeavor put together.

  Mario Pei

  Technology, Together, Tongue

  Mario Pei (1965). “The Story of Language”

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• I believe we should try to move away from the vocabulary and attitudes which shape the stereotyping of developed and developing country approaches to human rights issues. We are collective custodians of universal human rights standards, and any sense that we fall into camps of "accuser" and "accused" is absolutely corrosive of our joint purposes. The reality is that no group of countries has any grounds for complacency about its own human rights performance and no group of countries does itself justice by automatically slipping into the "victim" mode.

  Mary Robinson

  Country, Attitude, Believe

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• Dance design is not simply one element; it is that without which ballet cannot exist. As aria is to opera, words to poetry, color to painting, so sequence in steps - their syntax, idiom, vocabulary - are the stuff of stage dancing.

  Lincoln Kirstein

  Dance, Color, Dancing

  Lincoln Kirstein (1970). “Four Centuries of Ballet: Fifty Masterworks”, p.5, Courier Corporation

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• In Jazz, improvisation isn't a matter of just making any ol' thing up. Jazz, like any language, has its own grammer and vocabulary. There's no right or wrong, just some choices that are better than others.

  Wynton Marsalis

  Music, Choices, Jazz Improvisation

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• My mother was a very literate person who had educated herself. She had an exceptional vocabulary.

  Lynn Johnston

  Mother, Educated, Exceptional

  Interview with Tom Heintjes, cartoonician.com. 1994.

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• 'I can't' are two words that have never been in my vocabulary. I believe in me more than anything in this world.

  Wilma Rudolph

  Happiness, Success, Perseverance

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• Vocabulary spills I'm ill.

  Nas

  Hip Hop, Ill, Spills

  Song: It Ain't Hard to Tell, Album: From Illmatic To Stillmatic: The Remixes, 2014

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• I found that when you start thinking and saying what you really want then your mind automatically shifts and pulls you in that direction. And sometimes it can be that simple, just a little twist in vocabulary that illustrates your attitude and philosophy.

  Jim Rohn

  Attitude, Philosophy, Optimistic

  FaceBook post by Jim Rohn from Oct 15, 2012

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• I work in a strange business, and trust is a word that's not even in the vocabulary.

  Kim Basinger

  Business, Strange, Strangeness

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• One barrier... is the impoverishment of classroom language, the failure to cultivate a common vocabulary about inquiry, explanation, argument and problem solving.

  David Perkins

  Teaching, Learning, Inquiry

  David Perkins (2008). “Smart Schools: From Training Memories to Educating Minds”, p.143, Simon and Schuster

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• The term "too big to fail" must be excised from our vocabulary.

  Jamie Dimon

  Motivational, Failing, Bigs

  "Banks should be allowed to expand - and fail" by Jamie Dimon, www.washingtonpost.com. November 13, 2009.

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• Being a man given to oratory and high principles, he enjoyed the sound of his own vocabulary and the warmth of his own virtue.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Men, Principles, Oratory

  Sinclair Lewis (2015). “Babbitt”, p.68, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• The vocabulary of pleasure depends on the imagery of pain.

  Marina Warner

  Pain, Pleasure, Imagery

  Marina Warner (2003). “Signs & wonders: essays on literature & culture”, Vintage

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• In contrast to the written account-which, depending on its complexity of thought, reference, and vocabulary, is pitched at a larger or smaller readership-a photograph has only one language and is destined potentially for all.

  Susan Sontag

  Photography, Language, Complexity

  Susan Sontag (2013). “Regarding the Pain of Others”, p.20, Macmillan

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• In fact, eloquence in English will inevitably make use of the Latin element in our vocabulary.

  Robert Fitzgerald

  Latin, Use, Elements

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• My first exposure to the vocabulary of inter-beingness was through the writings of Thich Nhat Hahn, to whom I remain enormously grateful.

  Deepak Chopra

  Grateful, Writing, Firsts

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