C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Words
Words are the wings of actions.
Words are the voice of the heart.
How forcible are right words!
A word spoken in due season, how good is it!
Words that weep, and tears that speak.
Words are but holy as the deeds they cover.
There are words which cut like steel.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Words are women; deeds are men.
Fair words gladden so many a heart.
Men who have much to say use the fewest words.
The artillery of words.
Words writ in waters.
Words are but empty thanks.
Words are mighty; words are living.
Words pay no debts, give her deeds.
But words once spoke can never be recall’d.
Words sweet as honey from his lips distill’d.
Youth is too hasty with words.
These words are razors to my wounded heart.
Good words are better than bad strokes.
Syllables govern the world.
Words are but pictures of our thoughts.
A single word often betrays a great design.
He that hath knowledge spareth his words.
Enough words, little wisdom.
Soft words, with nothing in them, make a song.
Before employing a fine word, find a place for it.
A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.
Some syllables are swords.
Words are the only things that last forever.
Your words bring daylight with them when you speak.
All words are pegs to hang ideas on.
A word once vulgarized can never be rehabilitated.
Words are less needful to sorrow than to joy.
Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.
Words, however, are things.
A single little word can strike him dead.
Men of few words are the best men.
The rabble also vent their rage in words.
The world is content with words; few think of searching into the nature of things.
There is no calamity which right words will not begin to redress.
The safest words are always those which bring us most directly to facts.
And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.
Her words but wind, and all her tears but water.
Words, like glass, darken whatever they do not help us to see.
How many honest words have suffered corruption since Chaucer’s days!
Rich in fit epithets, blest in the lovely marriage of pure words.
His words, like so many nimble and airy servitors, trip about him at command.
Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.
In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold, alike fantastic if too new or old.
Words are often seen hunting for an idea, but ideas are never seen hunting for words.
Words are like leaves; some wither every year, and every year a younger race succeed.
Nothing is rarer than the use of a word in its exact meaning.
Speaking words of endearment where words of comfort availed not.
Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know men.
Words are the motes of thought, and nothing more.
Heaps of huge words uphoarded hideously, with horrid sound, though having little sense.
On a single winged word hath hung the destiny of nations.
Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
When we desire to confine our words, we commonly say they are spoken under the rose.
He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.
In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.
There is no point where art so nearly touches nature as when it appears in the form of words.
And to bring in a new word by the head and shoulders, they leave out the old one.
Words are men’s daughters, but God’s sons are things.
Words become luminous when the poet’s finger has passed over them its phosphorescence.
I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of Heaven.
The smallest word has some unguarded spot, and danger lurks in i without a dot.
I was never so bethumped with words since first I called my brother’s father dad.
Words are grown so false, I am loath to prove reason with them.
If you do not wish a man to da a thing, you had better get him to talk about it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else.
Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.
A blemish may be removed from a diamond by careful polishing, but evil words once spoken cannot be effaced.
It is with a word as with an arrow: the arrow once loosed does not return to the bow; nor a word to the lips.
We should be as careful of our words as of our actions, and as far from speaking ill as from doing ill.
For one word a man is often deemed to be wise, and for one word he is often deemed to be foolish. We ought to be careful indeed what we say.
Like a beautiful flower full of color, but without scent, are the fine but fruitless words of him who does not act accordingly.
The turn of a sentence has decided the fate of many a friendship, and, for aught that we know, the fate of many a kingdom.
Kind words are benedictions. They are not only instruments of power, but of benevolence and courtesy; blessings both to the speaker and hearer of them.
Multitudes of words are neither an argument of clear ideas in the writer, nor a proper means of conveying clear notions to the reader.
It is as easy to draw back a stone thrown with force from the hand, as to recall a word once spoken.
Words are good, but they are not the best. The best is not to be explained by words; the spirit in which we act is the great matter.
In the mouths of many men soft words are like roses that soldiers put into the muzzles of their muskets on holidays.
Men believe that their reason governs their words; but it often happens the words have power to react on reason.
As it is the mark of great minds to say many things in a few words, so it is that of little minds to use many words to say nothing.
Words are as they are taken, and things are as they are used. There are even cursed blessings.
Thought in the mind may come forth gold or dross; when coined in words, we know its real worth.
Words are often things also, and very precious, especially on the gravest occasions. Without “words,” and the truth of things that is in them, what were we?
Gentle words, quiet words, are after all, the most powerful words. They are more convincing, more compelling, more prevailing.
They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. They have lived long in the alms-basket of words!
It would be well for us all, old and young, to remember that our words and actions, ay, and our thoughts also, are set upon never-stopping wheels, rolling on and on unto the pathway of eternity.
The last word should be the last word. It is like a finishing touch given to color; there is nothing more to add. But what precaution is needed in order not to put the last word first.
Liquid, flowing words are the choicest and the best, if language is regarded as music. But when it is considered as a picture, then there are rough words which are very telling,—they make their mark.
He used words as mere stepping-stones, upon which, with a free and youthful bound, his spirit crosses and recrosses the bright and rushing stream of thought.
I hate anything that occupies more space than it is worth. I hate to see a load of bandboxes go along the street, and I hate to see a parcel of big words without anything in them.
Sorrowful words become the sorrowful; angry words suit the passionate; light words a playful expression; serious words suit the grave.
Words indeed are but the signs and counters of knowledge, and their currency should be strictly regulated by the capital which they represent.
“The last word” is the most dangerous of infernal machines; and husband and wife should no more fight to get it than they would struggle for the possession of a lighted bombshell.
Words are freeborn, and not the vassals of the gruff tryants of prose to do their bidding only. They have the same right to dance and sing as the dewdrops have to sparkle and the stars to shine.