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word quotes

  • The Greeks Had a Word for It. Albee

    - Zoe« Akins
      Title of play.

  • Polyester†the most valuable word to come out of the 70s, the one that defines tacky for all time.

    -Anonymous
      'Prettier Poly', NewYork Times editorial, 21 Mar.

  • Philistinism!We have not the expression in English. Perhapswehavenottheword because wehavesomuch of the thing.

    - Matthew Arnold
      Essays in Criticism First Series,'Heinrich Heine'.

  • Then up and started our gudewife, Gied three skips on the floor: 'Gudeman, ye've spoken the foremost word, Get up and bar the door.'

    -Ballads
    'Get Up and Bar the Door'.

  • Estou farto do lirismo comedido Do lirismo bem comportado Do lirismo funciona  rio p u blico com livro de ponto expediente protocolo e manifesta c° o‹  es de apre c° o ao Sr Diretor. Estou farto do lirismo que pa  ra e vai averiguar no diciona  rio o cunho verna  culo de um voca  bulo. Abaixo os puristas I'm sick of cautious lyricism of well-behaved lyricism of a civil servant lyricism complete with time card office hours set procedures and expressions of esteem for Mr Boss, Sir. I'm sick of the lyricism that has to stop in midstream to look up the precise meaning of a word. Down with purists!

    - Manuel Bandeira
      Libertinagem,'Poe  tica' (translated as'Poetics',1989).

  •   'Some people', Miss R. said,'run to conceits or wisdom but I hold to the hard, brown, nutlike word. I might point out that there is enough aesthetic excitement here to satisfy anyone but a damned fool.'

    - Donald Barthelme
      Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural  Acts,'The Indian Uprising'.

  • Here I must say, in my eighty-sixth year, I do not feel greatly different from when I was eighty-five. This is my final word. It is time for me to become an apprentice once more. I have not settled in which direction. But somewhere, sometime soon.

    -Baron
      Address at a farewellbanquet in London, hostedfor him by Roy Thomson, Lord Thomson of Fleet, 25 May. He died two weeks later.

  • And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that hemight maketheeknow that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the L doth man live.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDDeuteronomy 8:3.

  • Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the L be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORD1 Kings18:21.

  • Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms119:9.

  • Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms119:11.

  • Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms119:105.

  • A word spoken in due season, how good is it!

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Proverbs15:23.

  • A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Proverbs 25:11.

  • Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the L hand double for all her sins. The voice of himthat crieth in the wilderness,Prepare ye the way of the L, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valleyshall be exalted,and everymountainand hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the L shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the L hath spoken it. The voicesaid,Cry. And hesaid,What shall Icry? All flesh isgrass, and all thegoodlinessthereof isastheflowerof the field: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the L bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORD'SORDORDORDORDIsaiah 40:1^8.

  • Foras therain cometh down, and thesnow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and makethit bring forthand bud, that it maygiveseedtothe sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Isaiah 55:10^11.

  •   Behold, the days come, saith the Lord G, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the L: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the L, and shall not find it.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ODORDORDAmos 8:11^12.

  • If thou hast heard a word, let it die with thee; and be bold, it will not burst thee.

    -Bible (Apocrypha)
    Ecclesiasticus19:10.

  • Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew 4:1^4.

  • The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and myservant shall be healed.For Iama man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man,Go, and he goeth; and to another,Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed,Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew 8:8^10.

  • He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew13:22.

  • But hethat received seed into the good ground ishethat heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew13:23.

  • And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Luke1:38.

  • Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Luke 2:29^32.

  • In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St  John1:1^3.

  • And theWord wasmade flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St  John1:14.

  • Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said,It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Acts of the  Apostles 6:2^4.

  • Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
      Timothy 4:2.

  • God, whoat sundry times and indiversmannersspake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom he also made the worlds: Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Hebrews1:1^3.

  • For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Hebrews 4:12.

  • Behold,I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Revelation 3:8.

  •    Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace. Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace: according to thy word. See Bible (NewTestament) 115:27.

    -Bible (Vulgate)
    St Luke 2:29.

  •    We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we from time to time most grievouslyhave committed,By thought, word, and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.

    -Book of Common Prayer
    Holy Communion, General Confession.

  • Have mercy upon all Jews,Turks, Infidels, and Hereticks, and take fromthem all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word.

    -Book of Common Prayer
    Collects, Good Friday.

  • I found myself growing increasingly irritated with the notion of a British novel, which was really an irritation with the word British, a grey, unsatisfactory, bad- weather kind of word, a piece of linguistic compromise.

    - Bill (William Holmes) Buford
      Editorial, Granta, no.43.

  • 'That's a great deal tomake one word mean,'Alicesaid in a thoughtful tone. 'When I make a word do a lot of work like that,'said Humpty Dumpty,'I always pay it extra.'

    -Dodgson
    Through the Looking-Glass, ch.6,'Humpty Dumpty'.

  • 'There's glory for you!' 'I don't know what you mean by ''glory'','Alice said. 'Imeant,''there's a niceknock-down argument for you!''' 'But ''glory''doesn't mean''a nice knock-down argument'','Alice objected. 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone,'it means just what I choose it to meanneither more nor less.'

    -Dodgson
    Through the Looking-Glass, ch.6,'Humpty Dumpty'.

  • 'By God,'quod he,'for pleynly, at a word, Thy drasty rymyng is nat worth a toord!'

    - Geoffrey Chaucer
      Canterbury  Tales,'Sir Thopas', l.929^30.

  • When all philosophies shall fail, This word alone shall fit; That a sage feels too small for life, And a fool too large for it.

    - G(ilbert) K(eith) Chesterton
    Ballad of the White Horse, bk.8.

  • Bilbo's the word, and slaughter will ensue.

    -William Congreve
      Bluffe to Sir  Joseph. The Old Bachelor, act 3, sc.7.

  • My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feelit is, before all, to make you see.Thatand no more, and it is everything.

    -Korzeniowski
      The Nigger of the Narcissus, preface.

  •    Leonora, Leonora, How the word rollsLeonora Lion-like, in full-mouthed sound, Marching o'er the metric ground With a tawny tread sublime; So your name moves, Leonora, Down my desert rhyme.

    - Dinah Maria ne  e Mulock Craik
    Collected Poems,'Leonora'.

  • Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.

    - e e pen name of  Edward Estlin Cummings cummings
      'Jottings', in Wake, no.10.

  • Fluent in all the languages dead or living, the sun comes up with a word of worlds all spinning in a world of words.

    - (Thomas) Allen Munro Curnow
      An Incorrigible Music,'A Balanced Bait in Handy Pellet Form'.

  • 'Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word,' he said.

    -Walter de la Mare
      'The Listeners'.

  • A word is dead When it is said, Some say. I say it just Begins to live That day.

    - Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
    ?1872  Complete Poems, no.1212 (first published1894).

  •    Ye servants of the Lord, Each in his office wait, Observant of the heavenly word, And watchful at his gate.

    - Philip Doddridge
    Hymns,'Ye Servants of the Lord' (published1755).

  • Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame In keen iambics, but mild anagram: Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command Some peaceful province in Acrostic Land. There thou mayest wings displayand altars raise, And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.

    -John Dryden
      MacFlecknoe (published1682), l.203^8.

  • Desire paces Eternityas if it had bounds, craving death. The Word climbs upward into Its crown.

    -William Dunbar
      Roots and Branches,'Structure of Rime X VII'.

  • Polyphiloprogenitive The sapient sutlers of the Lord Drift across the window-panes In the beginning was the Word.

    -T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot
      'Mr Eliot's Sunday Morning Service'.

  • Signs are taken for wonders.'We would see a sign!' The word within the word, unable to speak a word, Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year Came Christ the tiger.

    -T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot
      'Gerontion'.

  • There's Carol like a rolling car, And Martin like a flying bird, And Adam like the Lord's First Word, And Raymond like the Harvest Moon, And Peter like a piper's tune, And Alan like the flowing on Of water. And there's John, like John.

    - Eleanor Farjeon
      Then There Were Three,'Boys' Names'.

  • Since his capacity to do is forced into channels of evil through environment and pressures, man is strong before he is moral. The world's anguish is caused by people between twentyand forty.

    -William Harrison Faulkner
      Interview in Paris Review, Spring.

  • The moving finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

    - Edward Fitzgerald
      The Ruba  iya  t of Omar Khayya  m of Naishapur, stanza 51.

  • Les oeuvres les plus belles sont celles o  u' il y a le moins de matie'  re; plus l'expression se rapproche de la pense  e, plus le mot colle dessus et dispara|"t, plus c'est beau. Je crois que l'avenir de l'art est dans ces voies. The most beautiful works are those that have the least content; the closer the expression is to the thought, the more indistinguishable the word from the content, the more beautiful is the work. I believe that the future of art lies in this direction.

    - Gustave Flaubert
      Letter to Mme Louise Colet,16  Jan.

  • To Day Ipronuncedawordwhichshould nevercome out of a ladys lips it was that I called John a Impudent Bitch.

    - Marjory Fleming
      'Journal 2' in F Sidgwick (ed)  The Complete Marjory Fleming (1934).

  • My dear chap! Good isn't the word!

    - Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck) Gilbert
    To an actor who had just given a very weak performance. Attributed.

  • Democracy! Bah! When I hear that word I reach for my feather Boa!

    - Allen Ginsberg
       Journalentry, Oct. Collected in Journals: Early Fifties Early Sixties,'NewYork City'.

  • My final word, before I'm done, Is 'Cancer can be rather fun'. Thanks to the nurses and Nye Bevan The NHS is quite like heaven Provided one confronts the tumour With a sufficient sense of humour. I know that cancer often kills, But so do cars and sleeping pills; And it can hurt one till one sweats, So can bad teeth and unpaid debts.

    -J(ohn) B(urdon) S(anderson) Haldane
      'Cancer's a Funny Thing'.

  • How is it possible to sayan unkind or irreverential word of Rome? The city of all time, and of all the world!

    - Nathaniel Hawthorne
      The Marble Faun, ch.12.

  • Et si uxoris nomen sanctius ac validius videtur, dulcius mihi semper exstitit amic× vocabulum; aut si non indigneris, concubin× vel scorti. Ifthename of wifeseemsmore blessed or more binding, always sweeter to me will be the word lover, or if I may, concubine or whore.

    -He  lo|«  se
    c.1135  First letter to Peter  Abelard.

  • Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam, Where the deer and the antelope play, Where seldom is heard a discouraging word And the skies are not cloudy all day.

    - Brewster   d.1911 Higley
    c.1873  'Home on the Range'.

  • Le mot, c'est leVerbe, et leVerbe, c'est Dieu. The word is theVerb, and theVerb is God.

    -Victor Marie Hugo
      Contemplations, bk.1, no.8.

  • Science says the first word on everything and the last word on nothing.

    -Victor Marie Hugo
    Attributed.

  • You must bring out of each word its practical cash-value, set it at work within the stream of your experience.

    -William James
      Pragmatism, lecture 2.

  • Nor shall our cups make any guilty men: But, at our parting, we will be, as when We innocently met. No simple word, That shall be utter'd at our mirthful board, Shall make us sad next morning: or affright The liberty, that we'll enjoy tonight.

    - Ben Jonson
      Epigrams,'On Inviting a Friend to Supper'.

  • Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.

    -John Keats
      Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems,'Ode to a Nightingale', stanza 8.

  • Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined bya hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall payany price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.

    -John F(itzgerald) Kennedy
      Inaugural address, Washington, 20  Jan.

  • No! I swear by the slinkers, the runners, the sinkers, by the night swarming, by the dawn sighing, truly this is the word of a noble Messenger.

    -The Koran
    Sura 81,15^19.

  • Death stands above me, whispering low I know not what into my ear; Of his strange language all I know Is, there is not a word of fear.

    -Walter Savage Landor
      'Death stands above me'.

  •    Music is Love in search of a word.

    - Sidney Lanier
      The Symphony.

  • Never such innocence, Never before or since, As changed itself to past Without a wordthe men Leaving the gardens tidy, The thousands of marriages Lasting a little while longer: Never such innocence again.

    - Philip Arthur Larkin
      'MCMXI V'.

  • In one word he told me the secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarize†only be sure always to call it please 'research'.

    -Tom (Thomas Andrew) Lehrer
      'Lobachevski', satirical song.

  •    Woord is but wynd; leff woord and tak the dede.

    -John Lydgate
    Secrets of Old Philosophers, l.224.

  •   I once said in an interview that every word she writes is a lie, including 'and'and 'the'.

    -Joseph R(aymond) McCarthy
      In response to Lillian Hellman's memoir, Scoundrel Time, in the NewYork Times,16 Feb.

  • No' wan in fifty kens a wurd Burns wrote But misapplied is a'body's property

    -Grieve
      A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, l.41^2.

  • Mandalay has its name; the falling cadence of the lovely word has gathered about itself the chiaroscuro of romance.

    -W(illiam) Somerset Maugham
      The Gentleman in the Parlour.

  •    How few the days are that hold the mind in place; like a tapestry hanging on four or five hooks. Especially the day you stop becoming; the day you merelyare. I suppose it's when the principles dissolve, and instead of the general gray of what ought to be you begin to see what is† The word 'Now' is like a bomb through the window, and it ticks.

    - Arthur Miller
      Quentin.  After the Fall, act1.

  • This is not a book in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit inthe face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny,Time, Love, Beauty†what you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off-key perhaps, but I will sing.

    - Henry Valentine Miller
      Tropic of Cancer.

  • No man would set a word down on paper if he had the courage to live out what he believed in.

    - Henry Valentine Miller
      Sexus, ch.1.

  • The word 'civilization'to my mind is coupled with death. When I use the word, I see civilization as a crippling, thwarting thing, a stultifying thing† Civilization is the arteriosclerosis of culture.

    - Henry Valentine Miller
      Interview in the Paris Review, Summer.

  • 'Good', then, if we mean by it that quality which we assert to belong to a thing, when we say that the thing is good, is incapable of any definition, in the most important sense of the word.

    - G(eorge) E(dward) Moore
      Principia Ethica, ch.1.

  •    If the cardinal points of costume are Robes,Tato, Rig and Scunge, where are shorts in this compass? Theyare the never Robes as other bareleg outfits have been: the toga, the kilt, the lava-lava, the Mahatma's cotton dhoti; archbishops and field marshals at their ceremonies never wear shorts. The very word means underpants in North America.

    - Les(lie Allan) Murray
      Selected Poems,'The Dream of  Wearing Shorts Forever'.

  • Make up your mind dearheart.Do you want to be a great actor or a household word?

    - Laurence Kerr, Baron Olivier
    c.1962  Comment to Richard Burton while filming Cleopatra. Burton replied'Both'.

  • And it is that word 'hummy', my darlings, that marks the first place in'The House at Pooh Corner'at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up.

    - Dorothy ne  e Rothschild Parker
      Book review in the NewYorker, 20 Oct.

  • En un mot, l'homme conna|"t qu'il est mise  rable: il est donc mise  rable, puisqu'il l'est; mais il est bien grand, puisqu'il le conna|"t. In one word, man knows that he is miserable and therefore he is miserable because he knows it; but he is also worthy, because he knows his condition.

    - Blaise Pascal
    c.1654^1662  Pense  es, pt.6, no.416.

  • At ev'ry word a reputation dies.

    - Alexander Pope
      The Rape of the Lock, canto 3, l.16.

  • Lo! thy dread empire,Chaos! is restored; Light dies before thy uncreating word: Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall; And universal darkness buries all.

    - Alexander Pope
      The Dunciad, bk.4, l.653^6.

  • Use no word that under stress of emotion you could not actually say.

    - Ezra Loomis Pound
    Quoted in Patricia C Willis (ed) The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore (1986).

  • 'The firm'a proud Victorian word.It evokes the lost sense of Victorian regard for the pride of people in their daily trade.

    - Sir V(ictor) S(awdon) Pritchett
    'Betjeman', in the NewYorker, 24 Jun.

  • I am repelled by those who voice the word 'nature', without having any trace of it in their hearts.

    - Odilon Redon
    Quoted in Edward Lucie-Smith Symbolist Art (1972).

  •    I have a horror of the word 'flesh', which has become so shopworn.Why not 'meat'whilethey're about it? What I like is skin, a young girl's skin that is pink and shows that she has a good circulation.

    - Pierre Auguste Renoir
    Quoted inJean Renoir Renoir, My Father (translated by R and D Weaver,1962).

  • The ache to utter and see in word The silhouette of a brooding soul.

    - Carl Sandburg
      Describing the poet's motivation. In Reckless Ecstasy.

  • Alone† The word is life endured and known. It is the stillness where our spirits walk And all but inmost faith is overthrown.

    - Siegfried Louvain Sassoon
      The Heart'sJourney, pt.11,'''When I'm alone''the words tripped off his tongue'.

  • He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, He came to those who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: 'Follow thou me!' and setsustothetaskswhich Hehastofulfil forour time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple,He will reveal Himself inthetoils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who He is.

    - Albert Schweitzer
      Von Reimarus zuWrede (translated byW Montgomery as The Quest for the HistoricalJesus,1910).

  • Wicked people means people who have no love: therefore they have no shame. They have the power to ask for love because they don't need it: they have the power to offer it because they have none to give. But we, who have love, and long to mingle it with the love of others: we cannot utter a word.You find that, don't you?

    - George Bernard Shaw
      Marchbanks to Proserpine. Candida, act 2.

  • Nobodycansayaword against Greek: it stamps a manat once as an educated gentleman.

    - George Bernard Shaw
      Lady Britomart Undershaft to Stephen. Major Barbara, act1.

  • A single word even may be a spark of inextinguishable thought.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
    A Defence of Poetry.

  • But a word stung him like a mosquito† For what they hear, they repeat!

    - Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell
      Fa c° ade,'Tango-Pasodoble'.

  • A word is the carving and colouring of a thought, and gives it permanence.

    - Sir (Francis) Osbert Sitwell
      Laughter in the Next Room, ch.7.

  • For every word has its marrow in the English tongue for order and for delight. For the dissyllables such as able table &c are the fiddle rhymes. For all dissyllables and some trissyllables are fiddle rhymes. For the relations of words are in pairs first. For the relations of words are sometimes in oppositions. For the relations of words are according to their distances from the pair.

    - Christopher Smart
    ^63  JubilateAgno, fragment B, l.595^600. (First published 1939.)

  • The word, it is to be observed, has two different meanings, and sometimes the utility of some particular object, and sometimes the power of purchasing other goods which the possession of that object conveys. This one may be called 'value in use'; the other,'value in exchange'. The things which have the greatest value in usehave frequently little or novalue in exchange; and on the contrary, those which have the greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use. Nothing is more useful than water: but it will purchase scarce any thing; scarce any thing can be had in exchange for it. A diamond, on the contrary, has scarce any value in use; but a very great quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange for it.

    - Adam Smith
    VALUE1776  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of theWealth of Nations, bk.1, ch.4.

  • O luely, luely cam she in And luely she lat doun: I kent her be her caller lips And her breists sae sma'an'roun'. A'thru the nicht we spak nae word Nor sinder'd bane frae bane: A'thru the nicht I heard her hert Gang soundin' wi'myain.

    -William Soutar
      'TheTryst', stanzas1^2.

  • As to woman's subjection†it is important to note that equal dominion isgiven to woman over every living thing, but not oneword issaidgiving mandominionover woman.

    - Elizabeth ne  e  Cady Stanton
      TheWoman's Bible, pt.1, ch.1,'Comments on Genesis'.

  • The Church's one foundation Is Jesus Christ, her Lord; She is his new creation By water and the word; From heaven he came and sought her To be his holy bride, With his own blood he bought her. And for her life he died.

    - Samuel John Stone
      Lyra fidelium.

  • He replied that I must needs be mistaken, or that I said the thing which was not. (For they have no word in their language to express lying or falsehood.)

    -Jonathan Swift
      Gulliver'sTravels,'A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms', ch.3.

  • Man's word is God in man.

    -Tennyson
      Idylls of the King,'The Coming of Arthur', l.132.

  • Taa«  ke my word for it, Sammy, the poor in a loomp is bad.

    -Tennyson
      'Northern Farmer. New Style', stanza12.

  • Word has somehow got around that the split infinitive is always wrong.That is of a piece with the outworn notion that it is always wrong to strike a lady.

    -James Grover Thurber
    Recalled on his death, 2 Nov1961.

  •    Is it not singular how some men continue to obtain the reputation of popular authorship without adding a word to the literature of their country worthy of note?† To puff and to get one's self puffed have become different branches of a new profession.

    - Anthony Trollope
      TheWayWe Live Now, ch.1.

  •    Criticssearchforagesfor thewrong word, which, togive them credit, they eventually find.

    - Sir PeterAlexander Ustinov
      BBC radio broadcast, Feb.

  • Oh,iftheQueenwereaman,shewouldliketogoandgive those Russians, whose word one cannot believe, such a beating! We shall never be friends again till we have it out.

    -Victoria in full  Alexandrina Victoria
      Letter to Lord Beaconsfield,10 Jan.

  • Writing is†waiting for the word that may not be there until next Tuesday.

    - Richard Wilbur
      In the Los AngelesTimes,13 Oct.

  • Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

    - Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills Wilde
      The Ballad of Reading Gaol, pt.1, stanza 7.

  •    The people of the United States are drawn from many nations, and chiefly from the nations now at war. Some will wish one nation, others another, to succeed in this monumental struggle. I venture to speak a solemn word of warning. The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name during these days that are to try men's souls.We must be impartial in thought as well as in action.

    - (Thomas) Woodrow Wilson
      Message to the Senate,19 Aug.

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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