Wording Quotes - Page 2

• Poetry is a second translation of the soul's feeling; it must be rendered into thought, and thought must change its nebulous robe of semi-wording into definite language, before it reaches another heart. Music is a first translation of feeling, needing no second, but entering the heart direct.

  Frances Ridley Havergal

  Heart, Feelings, Soul

  Frances Ridley Havergal (1892). “Golden Thoughts from the Life and Works of Frances Ridley Havergal ...”

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the middle 1970s an astronomer I admire put together a modest manifesto called "Objections to Astrology" and asked me to endorse it. I struggled with his wording, and in the end found myself unable to sign, not because I thought astrology has any validity whatever, but because I felt (and still feel) that the tone of the statement was authoritarian.

  Carl Sagan

  Astrology, Atheism, Together

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.388, Ballantine Books

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The only uncertainty surrounding the decision is the wording of the accompanying statement and, in particular, whether the assessment that 'some further policy firming may be needed to keep the risks ... roughly in balance' will be dropped.

  Paul Ashworth

  Assessment, Decision, Risk

  4 Copy quote

• The IPCC 'policy summaries,' written by a small group of their political operatives, frequently contradict the work of the scientists that prepare the scientific assessments. Even worse, some of the wording in the science portions has been changed by policy makers after the scientists have approved the conclusions.

  Peter Friedman

  Assessment, Political, Groups

  4 Copy quote

• Reframing an extract as a quotation constitutes a kind of coauthorship. With no change in wording, the cited passage becomes different. I imagine that the thrill of making an anthology includes the opportunity to become such a coauthor.

  Gary Saul Morson

  Opportunity, Different, Thrill

  16 Copy quote

• The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy.

  Frank Herbert

  Men, Differences, Violence

  Frank Herbert (2008). “Dune Messiah”, p.148, Penguin

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Gospel songs to me are about the mansion in the sky, and washed in the blood of Christ's crimson blood, songs that are filled with biblical wording that's no longer understood by a lot of people.

  Larry Norman

  Song, Biblical, Blood

  7 Copy quote

• Muddy language is not confined to policies alone. Each of you has seen replies to simple questions in which the meaning was lost through hopelessly obscure wording. When a person writes to the Veterans Administration, he is entitled to an easily understood, frank, and courteous reply. If our replies cannot be understood, they are not only not worth writing, but they simply create additional work.

  Omar N. Bradley

  Writing, Simple, Government

  61 Copy quote

• It's very interesting, the joke comes first and then the wording comes within five seconds, maybe ten seconds. My thing is to get the joke across in as few words as possible. However, sometimes a word that's not really needed does help the rhythm of it. It's a gut feeling.

  Steven Wright

  Interesting, Feelings, Doe

  7 Copy quote

• I enjoy wording. Words for me are tangible bodies, visible sirens, incarnate sensualities.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Sirens, Body, Tangible

  Fernando Pessoa, Richard Zenith (1996). “Book of Disquietude”, Carcanet Press Limited

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity, it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.

  John Keats

  Inspirational, Reading Poetry, Remembrance

  Letter to John Taylor, 27 February 1818, in H. E. Rollins (ed.) 'The Letters of John Keats' (1958) vol. 1, p. 238

  8 Copy quote

  Show source