"One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called "weasel words." When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a "weasel word" after another there is nothing left of the other."

"Satis eloquentiæ sapientiæ parum."

"Schnell fertig ist die Jugend mit dem Wort."

"O! many a shaft, at random sent, Finds mark the archer little meant! And many a word, at random spoken, May soothe or wound a heart that's broken!"

"We know not what we do When we speak words."

"So all my best is dressing old words new."

"The arts Babblative and Scriblative."

"The artillery of words."

"But from sharp words and wits men pluck no fruit; And gathering thorns they shake the tree at root; For words divide and rend, But silence is most noble till the end."

"I have not skill From such a sharp and waspish word as "No" To pluck the sting."

"I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within. * * * * * In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, Like coarsest clothes against the cold; But that large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more."

"Dictum sapienti sat est."

"As the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, "Adsum!" and fell back. It was the word we used at school, when names were called; and lo, he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in the presence of The Master."

"Deep in my heart subsides the infrequent word, And there dies slowly throbbing like a wounded bird."

"Hold fast the form of sound words."

"As shadows attend substances, so words follow upon things."

"You [Pindar] who possessed the talent of speaking much without saying anything."

"You phrase tormenting fantastic chorus, With strangest words at your beck and call."

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: "It might have been!""

"Would you repeat that again, sir, for it soun's sae sonorous that the words droon the ideas?"

"Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on, Through words and things, a dim and perilous way."

"Fair words enough a man shall find, They be good cheap: they cost right nought, Their substance is but only wind."

"There is no magic in words."

"Most of the disputes in the world arise from words."

"Rather commend yourself by your actions, than your expressions; one good action is worth twenty good expressions."

"Words pass from men lightly."

"The words are like Jack in a Box, and nobody knows what to make of them."

"Is not the Judge bound to know the meaning of all words in the English language; or if they are used technically or scientifically, to inform his own mind by evidence, and then to determine the meaning?"

"Qiue ad unumfinem loqunta sunt, non debent ad alium detorqueri: Those words which are spoken to one end, ought not to be perverted to another."

"Nay, gentlemen, do not quarrel about words."

"He says one thing, but he does another; it seems to me to be common sense to look at what is done, and not to what is said."

"We must judge of men's intentions by their acts, and not by expressions in letters, which are contrary to their acts."

"Words are transient, and vanish in the air as soon as spoken, and there can be no tenor of them . . . but when a thing is written, though every omission of a letter may not make a variance, yet, if such omission makes a word of another signification, it is fatal."

"There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture."

"Oft on the dappled turf at ease I sit, and play with similes, Loose type of things through all degrees."

"From purest wells of English undefiled None deeper drank than he, the New World's Child, Who in the language of their farm field spoke The wit and wisdom of New England folk."