English Words Quotes

Fair play is an English word. It is not a French word, and it has been copied all over the world. Unfortunately, it does not function any more here. ~ Arsene Wenger

IN ENGLISH, words of Latin origin tend to carry overtones of intellectual, moral and aesthetic "classiness" - overtones which are not carried, as a rule, by their Anglo-Saxon equivalents. "Maternal," for instance, means the same as "motherly," "intoxicated" as "drunk" - but with what subtly important shades of difference! And when Shakespeare needed a name for a comic character, it was Sir Toby Belch that he chose, not Cavalier Tobias Eructation. ~ Aldous Huxley

Most people give substantial weight to anecdotal evidence, perhaps so much that it will cancel out positive recommendations found in consumer reports. People's tendency to give undue weight to some types of information is called the availability heuristic. A heuristic is a rule of thumb, a mental shortcut. Suppose someone asked you a question like what's more common in English, words that start with the letter to r words that have t as the third letter. You would have an easier time generating words that started with the letter t. Words starting with t would be more 'available'. ~ Barry Schwartz

I laughed. "You're too young to be so ... pessimistic," I said, using the English word.
"Pessi-what?"
"Pessimistic. It means looking only at the dark side of things."
"Pessimistic ... pessimistic ... " She repeated the English to herself over and over, and then she looked up at me with a fierce glare. "I'm only sixteen," she said, "and I don't know much about the world, but I do know one thing for sure. If I'm pessimistic, then the adults in this world who are not pessimistic are a bunch of idiots. ~ Haruki Murakami

I am finding I like my new vocabulary. Cock, pussy, and fuck. My three new favorite English words. I want to shove my cock in her pussy and fuck her hard. ~ Sawyer Bennett

My own brand will stand or fall because of me. Dior won't fall if I fall. It will also still stand if I'm not there. I'm coming in there, and it's like a - I don't know the English word - like a passage. ~ Raf Simons

The word coach comes from the old English word coach, which was a vehicle, a carriage that took royalty or very important people from where they were to where they wanted to go. That's really what a coach is. He or she tries to create a vehicle that will help you get where you're going, not where the coach wants you to go. ~ Timothy Gallwey

English words are like prisms. Empty, nothing inside, and still they make rainbows. ~ Denis Johnson

Genie

In 1970 a child called Genie was admitted to a children's hospital in Los Angeles. She was thirteen years old and had spent most of her life tied to a chair in a small closed room. Her father was intolerant of any kind of noise and had beaten the child whenever she made a sound. There had been no radio or television, and Genie's only other human contact was with her mother who was forbidden to spend more than a few minutes with the child to feed her. Genie had spent her whole life in a state of physical, sensory, social and emotional deprivation.
As might be expected, Genie was unable to use language when she was first brought into care. However, within a short period of time, she began to respond to the speech of others, to try to imitate sound and to communicate. Her syntax remained very simple. However, the fact that she went on to develop an ability to speak and understand a fairly large number of English words provides some evidence against the notion that language cannot be acquired at all after the critical period. ~ George Yule

My Dearest Theresa,

I have read this book in your garden, my love, you were absent, or else I could not have read it. It is a favourite book of mine. You will not understand these English words, and others will not understand them, which is the reason I have not scrawled them in Italian. But you will recognize the handwriting of him who passionately loved you, and you will divine that, over a book that was yours, he could only think of love.
In that word, beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours, Amor mio, is comprised my existence here and thereafter. I feel I exist here, and I feel that I shall exist hereafter – to what purpose you will decide; my destiny rests with you, and you are a woman, eighteen years of age, and two out of a convent, I wish you had stayed there, with all my heart, or at least, that I had never met you in your married state.
But all this is too late. I love you, and you love me, at least, you say so, and act as if you did so, which last is a great consolation in all events. But I more than love you, and cannot cease to love you. Think of me, sometimes, when the Alps and ocean divide us, but they never will, unless you wish it. ~ Lord Byron

Comparing your beloved to a red, red rose might be fine if you're writing a poem, but these thinkers believed more exact language was needed to express the "truth"-a term, by the way, distilled from Icelandic, Swedish, Anglo-Saxon, and other non-English words meaning "believed" rather than certain. ~ James Geary

I hate editors, for they make me abandon a lot of perfectly good English words. ~ Mark Twain

I haven't yet discovered what my first language is so for the time being I use English words in order to say things: I expect I will always have to do it that way; regrettably I don't think my first language can be written down at all. ~ Claire-Louise Bennett

You English words?
I know you:
You are light as dreams,
Tough as oak,
Precious as gold,
As poppies and corn,
Or an old cloak:
Sweet as our birds
To the ear,
As the burnet rose
In the heat
Of Midsummer ~ Edward Thomas

English, strictly speaking, is not my first language by the way. I haven't yet discovered what my first language is so for the time being I use English words in order to say things. I expect I will always have to do it that way; regrettably I don't think my first language can be written down at all. I'm not sure it can be made external you see. I think it has to stay where it is; simmering in the elastic gloom betwixt my flickering organs. ~ Claire-Louise Bennett

No one, not even Shakespeare, surpasses Milton in his command of the sound, the music, the weight and taste and texture of English words. ~ Philip Pullman

What's he like?" "Thoughtful. Interesting. Compassionate." "These are English words for ugly. ~ Chris Cleave

Liberal" is one of those fine English words, like "lady" "gay" or "welfare" that have been spoiled by special pleading. So by "liberal I certainly don't mean tolerant or open-handed people or even big-government Democrats. I mean anyone who is excited that 1% of Ben and Jerry's profits go to promote world peace. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

Some of the substance of English words, I just don't understand at all because the culture's so strange to me. ~ Chow Yun-Fat

Being dyslexic, I'm lucky if I can recognize English words, but, being a demigod, Ancient Greek is sort of hardwired into my brain. 'Ke-rau-noh,' I pronounced. 'Blast?'

Annabeth gave me a wicked little smile. 'Closest term I could think of. Literally it means strike with lightning bolts .'

'Ooh,' Sadie said. 'I love striking things with lightning bolts. ~ Rick Riordan

Words, English words, are full of echoes, of memories, of associations. They have been out and about, on people's lips, in their houses, in the streets, in the fields, for so many centuries. And that is one of the chief difficulties in writing them today
that they are stored with other meanings, with other memories, and they have contracted so many famous marriages in the past. ~ Virginia Woolf

This is an important list at the heart of phonics instruction. It alphabetically lists 99 single phonemes (speech sounds) and consonant blends (usually two phonemes), and it gives example words for each of these; often for their use in the beginning, middle, and end of words. These example words are also common English words, many taken from the list of Instant Words. This list solves the problem of coming up with a good common word to illustrate a phonics principle for lessons and worksheets. ~ Edward B. Fry

The truth about idiocy ... is that it is at once an ethical and cognitive failure ... The Greek idios means 'private,' and idiotes means a private person, as opposed to a person in their public role ... This still comes across in the related English words 'idiomatic' and 'idiosyncratic,' which similarly suggest self-enclosure ... At the bottom, the idiot is a solipsist. ~ Matthew B. Crawford

Abligurition: an actual, if very obscure, English word, which means the spending of too much money on food. ~ John Green

Among the things that should make your antennae twitch are technical terms like "capitalized," "deferred," and "restructuring" - and plain-English words signaling that the company has altered its accounting practices, like "began," "change," and ~ Benjamin Graham

My goal is to act as a faithful interpreter, preserving as much of the original's nuances of meaning as possible without embellishment or omission. Yet a translator must also balance fidelity to the source, aptness of expression, and beauty of style. The best translations into English do not, in fact, read as if they were originally written in English. The English words are arranged in such a way that the reader sees a glimpse of another culture's patterns of thinking, hears an echo of another language's rhythms and cadences, and feels a tremor of another people's gestures and movements. ~ Ken Liu

I never dream in French, but certain French words seem better or more fun than English words - like 'pois chiches' for chick peas! ~ Lydia Davis

The English word thanks comes from the same root word as think. Maybe if leaders were more "thinkful" about the contribution of others, they would be more "thankful" to them. ~ John C. Maxwell

A Hopi Indian named Sun Chief said:
I had learned many English words and could recite part of the Ten Commandments. I knew how to sleep on a bad, pray to Jesus, comb my hair, eat with a knife and fork, and use a toilet. . . . I had also learned that a person thinks with his head instead of his heart. ~ Howard Zinn

Every free minute away from dance (my main focus) I was memorizing new English words, either showering, walking or on the toilet. I started reading English books even though I had very limited vocabulary. ~ Li Cunxin

When you sit down to write a book about sex, as we hope you one day will, you will discover that centuries of censorship have left us with very little adequate language with which to discuss the joys and occasional worries of sex. The language that we do have often carries implicit judgments: If the only polite way to talk about sexuality is in medical Latin - vulvas and pudendas, penes and testes - are only doctors allowed to talk about sex? Is sex all about disease? Meanwhile, most of the originally English words - cock and cunt, fucking, and, oh yes, slut - have been used as insults to degrade people and their sexuality and often have a hostile or coarse feel to them. Euphemisms - peepees and pussies, jade gates and mighty towers - sound as if we are embarrassed. Maybe we are. ~ Dossie Easton

When I'm on television, I'm talking to millions of people, so the conversation is totally different. My words are different. My diction is different because now I'm really talking American English and not homeboy English. ~ Keyshawn Johnson

And I felt, even in this time, a century later, that I too would gather my words and scream into the roaring waves, because to scream was to defy the story, and that defiance had meaning, no matter that the waves kept coming, would come, maybe, forever. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

A few minutes later, a tall, bronze-skinned woman with masses of dark hair, eyes like pale emeralds, and more curves than the Nürburgring racetrack appeared next to my table. My SEAL stood and started to intervene, but I held up a lazy hand, gave a droopy-eyed smile, slurred my words, and waved him off. The stripper sat on my lap with nothing between her and the Lord but a smile and three pieces of strategically placed duct tape. She slipped a glittering arm around my shoulders - she apparently was wearing lotion with metal flakes in it and it felt rough. Then she leaned her décolletage my way, placing her head next to my ear. "You know what you're supposed to do, right?" she whispered, smiling and acting like she had just said something terribly wrong. She was a good actress for Elizabeth City.
Laughing, smiling, and acting wasted, I slurred as loudly and obnoxiously as I could, "Oh, I know exactly what I'm doing, woman!" With that, I reached up and placed my hand on her massive breast, just as I'd been instructed to do - all for the good of my country.
The slap that followed could[…]"

Excerpt From: Jamie Smith. "Gray Work ~ Jamie Smith

Americans understand better than the Europeans and the English that any publicity is good. ~ Carl Andre

He smiled softly. "People you love never die." I had no idea of the sense of his words, but they stayed with me for centuries. ~ Matt Haig

Once he'd been an open book and the days had been too short to hold all our words. ~ Kristen Simmons

Beauty is the only human aspect which cannot be captured on any canvas howsoever hard an artist tries. At the most, the undaunted artist can replicate the beauty on paper but what is a replica in comparison to the original! The humbling resemblance can only be respected, not truly adored.
Beauty cannot be imprisoned in the lens of a camera. The images of beauty are a moment of its essence. Beauty cannot be displayed to evoke pleasure for all on a cinema screen. Those are just its imprints, mere illusions of its existence. Beauty cannot be described by words; it cannot be written or read about. There are no suitable words in all the languages of the world, ancient or modern to hold it between a paper and a pen or a script and an eye. Beauty can only be experienced from far, its delightful aroma can only be tasted through one's eyes and its pleasurable sight can only be felt from the soul.
Beauty can only be best described at its origin through a befuddling silence, the kind that leaves one almost on the verge of a pleasurable death, just because one chooses beauty over life. There is nothing in this world to hold something so pure, so divine except a loving heart. And it is the only manner through which love recognises love; the language of love has no alphabet, no words. ~ Faraaz Kazi

So in Jamaica it is the aim of everybody to talk English, act English and look English. And that last specification is where the greatest difficulties arise. It is not so difficult to put a coat of European culture over African culture, but it is next to impossible to lay a European face over an African face in the same generation. ~ Zora Neale Hurston

You're a killer," she says. The words should hurt me, but they only feel like the truth.
"Yes. And I want to be a killer for you, Ana. ~ Alexis Abbott

Become the change you want to see - those are words I live by. ~ Oprah Winfrey

The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God. ~ Leo Tolstoy

It is hard to write it in words that I can read, that re-establishes the fact that has been haunting me for the past one year. ~ Kudrat Dutta Chaudhary

A book is a little thing that is bigger on the inside, and makes the reader bigger inside as well, a Tardis of ink and glue and paper and words. ~ Stuart Kelly

We may feel bitterly how little our poems can do in the face of seemingly out of control technological power and seemingly limitless corporate greed, yet it has always been true that poetry can break isolation, show us to ourselves when we are outlawed or made invisible, remind us of beauty where no beauty seems possible, remind us kinship where all is represented as separation.
(Defy the Space That Separates, The Nation, October 7, 1996) ~ Adrienne Rich

Arrive before your Husband. Not that I can
See quite what good arriving first will do;
But still arrive before him. When he's taken
His place upon the couch and you go too
To sit beside him, on your best behavior
Stealthily touch my foot, and look at me,
Watching my nods, my eyes, my face's language;
Catch and return my signals secretly.
I'll send a wordless message with my eyebrows;
You'll read my fingers' words, words traced in wine.
When you recall our games of love together,
Your finger on rosy cheeks must trace a line.
If in your silent thoughts you wish to chide me,
Let your hand hold the lobe of your soft ear;
When, darling, what I do or say gives pleasure,
Keep turning to an fro the ring you wear.
When you wish well-earned curses on your husband,
Lay your hand on the table, as in prayer.
If he pours you wine, watch out, tell him to drink it;
Ask for what you want from the waiter there.
I shall take next the glass you hand the waiter
And I'll drink from the place you took your sips;
If he should offer anything he's tasted,
Refuse whatever food has touch his lips.
Don't let him plant his arms upon your shoulders,
Don't let him rest your gentle head on his hard chest,
Don't let your dress, your breasts, admit his fingers,
And--most of all--no kisses to be pressed!
You kiss--and I'll reveal myself your lover;
I'll say 'they're mi ~ Ovid

I fished inside my head for something, some way to prove it. And those strange words floated to the surface of my need. In as clear a
voice as l could, l looked at Prospero and said, "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. ~ Jonathan Maberry

When you're hard and unyielding your words score me with lines - I hate lines - I want curves - curves are happy like a snowman ... ~ John Geddes

Miami Insurance Agency, or MIA, has been missing in action (MIA) since I first wrote about it fifteen words and two acronyms ago. ~ Jarod Kintz

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all. ~ Winston S. Churchill

A man's words reveal, first, the man. The words are not the man, and yet they reveal him faithfully and are to be identified with him. Out of the abundance of the heart, the man speaks. The foundational nature of all language is therefore metaphorical because every word a man speaks reveals himself - just as God reveals Himself through the Word. Every word spoken ultimately reveals the speaker. ~ N.D. Wilson

There are times when silence is better than any other words in the dictionary... ~ Francis Chalifour

Look not so deeply into words and letters; for this Mystery hath been hidden by the Alchemists. Compose the sevenfold into a fourfold regimen; and when thou hast understood thou mayest make symbols; but by playing child's games with symbols thou shalt never understand. ~ Aleister Crowley

I wait for him to say the words, I'm done pretending. ~ Krista Ritchie

A part of me still says, 'Maybe, Denzel, you're supposed to preach. Maybe you're still compromising.' I've had an opportunity to play great men and, through their words, to preach. I take what talent I've been given seriously, and I want to use it for good. ~ Denzel Washington

Please be patient with me. Sometimes when I'm quiet it's because I need to figure myself out. It's not because I don't want to talk. Sometimes there are no words for my thoughts. ~ Kamla Bolanos

Please be real," she gasped. "Please don't be a dream." "I'm real," Matthew said huskily. "Don't cry so hard, there's no - oh, Daisy, love - " He gripped her head in his hands and pressed comforting words against her lips while she struggled to get even closer to him. He eased her to the floor, using the reassuring weight of his body to subdue her. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Someone appeared, with gentle and penetrating eyes, who - with no exchange of words - understood; and before whose glance her eyes dropped. The someone had no face, no form, no voice, no odour. He was a simple Presence, an all-embracing tenderness with strength and a promise of rest. ~ Toni Morrison

Actions speak louder than words."

Hardly original but judge people by what they do rather than what they say they will do. ~ Thomas Ullman

After the dead words,
after the ones still said and spoken,
what do you expect? Some flying leaves,
more scattered papers. Who knows?
Some dissolving
words, like the light or the echo dying out there in the great night. ~ Vicente Aleixandre

When one heated exchange (in English) led a commenter to write "Go fuck yourself!" in Lojban, it turned into a lengthy discussion of why he hadn't said what he meant to say, and what the proper Lojban expression for the sentiment might be. ~ Arika Okrent

In his head he felt the confused whirling of images seeking a name. Words, sounds, surged up inside him, clean and clear, and settled on everything around him. He named, and saw what he named recognize itself. ~ Gioconda Belli

Greed is permanent slavery ~ Ali Ibn Abi Talib

for we have had our say, our words, our time for speaking, our moments of light ~ Bruce Meyer

Mark my words, when a government pretends that it is the highest judge of its own actions, the result is not freedom as Jefferson says, but chaos and oppression. When he shuts religion out of government, when men of faith are not listened to, then all that remains is venality, posturing, and ambition. ~ Orson Scott Card

A knock at the door pulled me from my thoughts. I opened it, expecting to see Gupta, but it was Amar. His expression looked carved in stone and his lips were set in a grim line. But the moment we held each other's gaze, something in him relented. His hands tightened at his side.
"I would never want to cause you pain."
I flinched. "I am not in pain."
Lie.
"I am not some animal you wounded," I added.
Truth.
"It is only a night longer," he said.
The warning voice from the halls echoed back to me: You are running out of moon time. Listen to my warning rhyme. What would happen tomorrow?
Amar hesitated, before reaching out to hold my hand. I stared at the circlet of my hair around his wrist. Bitterness rose in my throat. I glanced from my bracelet to the other one on his wrist--black leather and knotted--dull and malevolent.
"Do these past days mean nothing?" he asked, so gently that my weak self curled around his words.
But I would no longer be weak. I tapped into that power in my veins and a shimmering wall of flames sprang up between us. Amar jumped back, shocked and then…amused.
"A little ruthlessness is to be admired, but it's cruel to play with a powerless heart. ~ Roshani Chokshi

Words have not been made to describe the state of meditation. Language allows us to bite around the edges, to nibble and taste, but never to report the essence. But still we try. Like a dream, never reported while it happens. Like an uncaged song, sweet and alive, but flying high. Like the moment of artistic creation, bright and new, unsullied. Meditation is an open window. We sit at the sill. A vista is revealed. There is no judgement, no anticipation, no memory or regret. In meditation we are without judgement. We sit alone, but there is no loneliness. ~ Richard Payment

In my mind, numbers and words are far more than squiggles of ink on a page. They have form, color, texture and so on. They come alive to me, which is why as a young child I thought of them as my 'friends.' ~ Daniel Tammet

Writing can be a very solitary business. It's you sat at a desk typing words into a computer. It can get lonely sometimes and lots of writers live quite isolated lives. ~ Paul Kane

We do need these two words, "public" and "relations" - and, of course, those words are still extremely important.
However, those 3 billion people who are social media users are all dealing with "relations," and everything has become "public"!
With social media, everything has been "public" for quite a while now; there is nothing "nonpublic" anymore. ~ Maxim Behar

The only truths they believe are thier own words. ~ Erin Bowman

For, once there's a death, one doesn't like to think there's been harsh words spoken and no chance of taking them back. ~ Agatha Christie

She gathered the books like clouds and words poured down like rain. ~ Markus Zusak

I can't give you much, or anything at all. But when I say those words to you, it won't just be words - It will be me giving you something that means something. And you deserve to know that, to feel that. So please, let me be the first to say it - because I need to be able to at least give you that...and when I do - those three words will be yours, forever. And so will I. ~ Jay McLean

There is nothing more annoying than somebody who is really thick but who believes with absolute conviction that he is more intelligent than you. In other words, they tend to be very self-contained, introspective and deep down they're probably striving for affection. Yet they have no way of going about attaining this, so they tend to rub people up the wrong way. ~ Karl Wiggins

W-MT: There was a book I read about in the New York Times Book Review. It had a red cover, maybe? A.J.: Yeah, that sounds familiar. [Translation: That is excessively vague. Author, title, description of the plot - these are more useful locators. That the cover might have been red and that it was in the New York Times Book Review helps me far less than you might think.] Anything else you remember about it? [Use your words.] ~ Gabrielle Zevin