The arrow belongs not to the archer when it has once left the bow; the word no longer belongs to the speaker when it has once passed his lips, especially when it has been multiplied by the press.
Words and feathers the wind carries away.
Words are women, deeds are men.
| author = Herbert
| work = Jaeula Prudentum.
| seealso = (See also Johnson)
| topic = Words
| page = 904
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>For words are wise men's counters—they do
but reckon by them—but they are the money
of fools.
Thomas Hobbes—The Leviathan. Pt. I. Ch.
IV. Sc. 15.
Words sweet as honey from his lips distill'd.
Homer—Iliad. Bk. I. L. 332
| note = Pope's trans.
Winged words.
Homer—Iliad. Bk. XX. 331
| note = Pope's trans.
Tristia nuestum
Vultum verba decent; iratum, plena minarum;
Ludentem, lasciva; severum, seria dictu.
Sorrowful words become the sorrowful ; angry
words suit the passionate; light words a playful expression ; serious words suit the grave.
Horace—Ars Poetica. 105.
Delere licebit
Quod non edideris; nescit vox missa reverti.
It will be practicable to blot written words
which you do not publish; but the spoken word
it is not possible to recall.
Horace—Ars Poetica. 389. Epistles. I.
18. 71.
Words are the soul's ambassadors, who go
Abroad upon her errands to and fro.
J. Howell—Of Words.
How forcible are right words!
Job. VI. 25.
Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words
without knowledge?
Job. XXXVIII. 2.
I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to
forget that words are the daughters of earth,
and that things are the sons of heaven.
| author = Samuel Johnson
| work = Preface to his Dictionary.
Sir William Jones quotes the saying as
proverbial in India ("deeds" for "sons"). Same used by Sir Thos. Bodlet—Letter to his Librarian. (1604)
(See also Herbert, Madden)
13
To make dictionaries is dull work.
| author = Samuel Johnson
| work = A Dictionary of the English Language. Dull.
Like orient pearls at random strung. Sir William Jones. Trans, from the Persian of Hafiz.
(See also Bidpai)
15
The masterless man . . . afflicted with the magic of the necessary words. . . . Words that may become alive and walk up and down in the hearts of the hearers. Kipling—Speech at the Royal Academy Banquet, London. 1906.
We might have been—these are but common
words,
And yet they make the sum of life's bewailing. Letitia E. Landon—Three Extracts from the Diary of a Week.
(See also Whitier)
17
We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.
Locke—Essay on the Hitman UnderstandingIll. 10.
Speaking words of endearment where words of comfort availed not.
Longfellow—Evangeline. Pt. I. V. L. 43.
19
My words are little jars
For you to take and put upon a shelf.
Their shapes are quaint and beautiful,
And they have many pleasant colours and lustres
To recommend them.
Also the scent from them fills the room
With sweetness of flowers and crushed grasses.
Lowell—A Gift.
20
There comes Emerson first, whose rich words.
every one,
Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on. Lowell—A Fable for Critics.
21
Ein Wortlein kann ihn fallen.
A single little word can strike him dead.
Luther. (Of the Pope.)
22
Some grave their wrongs on marble; He, more
just, Stooped down serene, and wrote them in the
dust.
Richard R. Madden—Poems on Sacrtd Subjects.
23
Words are men's daughters, but God's sou are things.
Samtjel Madden—Boulter's Monument. Said
to have been inserted by Dr. Johnson.
(See also Johnson)
Words that weep, and strains that agonise.
Strains that sigh and words that weep.
