Vocabulary Quotes

The limits of my language are the limits of my universe.

Every one has experienced how learning an appropriate name for what was dim and vague cleared up and...

[T]he accumulation of things not spelled out, not properly articulated, may result in neurosis.

Human vocabulary is still not capable, and probably never will be, of knowing, recognizing, and comm...

It is our duty and our joy to communicate our hearts to each other. Words assist us in this task.

In so-called primitive societies there are two words for power, mana and taboo: the power which crea...

Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.

The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused...

Sound is the vocabulary of nature.

As vocabulary is reduced , so are the number of feelings you can express, the number of events you c...

One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for l...

The word is only a representation of the meaning; even at its best, writing almost always falls shor...

The word is only a representation of the meaning, even at its best, writing almost always falls shor...

Right!""Right!""You can get there!""I can get there!""You're a natural at counting to two!""I'm a na...

I'd call him a sadistic, hippophilic necrophile, but that would be beating a dead horse.

He was telling an interesting anecdote full of exciting words like "encyclopedia" and "rhododendron"...

Vocabularies are crossing circles and loops. We are defined by the lines we choose to cross or to be...

We have too many high sounding words and too few actions that correspond with them.

Human understanding more easily invents new things than new words.

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the other one.

She had to fight against developing too combative a personality or becoming altogether a misanthrope...

Metaphor isn't just decorative language. If it were, it wouldn't scare us so much. . . . Colorful la...

OK, so the guy is cool, but... I mean own up, this is barking time, this is major lunch, this is sto...

Don't call a woman a bitch. Call her an ass-hole. It still gets your point across and it's not sexis...

He uses the nice old words so rich in tradition to be sure I know he means it.

Samuel Johnson said Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad, "tuned the English tongue.

A man with a scant vocabulary will almost certainly be a weak thinker. The richer and more copious o...

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understandin...

A good vocabulary is not acquired by reading books written according to some notion of the vocabular...

I understand the gist of your speculation,' said Rhialto. 'It is most likely nuncupatory.