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Quotes about Words

    “What if instead of being concerned, you were just aware? What if instead of talking about behavioral issues, you just talked about behaviors? How about instead banning curse words from your house, you banned negative self-talk, maybe negative talk entirely? Instead of complaining about their use of slang or improper English, you tried to limit complaining itself? What if instead of trying to find a nice way to point out that another kid is playing better than yours, you just dropped comparison altogether?”

    Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog

      “False science and false religion express their dogma in highly elevated language to make simple people think that they are mysterious, important, and attractive. But this mysterious language is not a sign of wisdom. The wiser a person is, the simpler the language he uses to express his thoughts.”

      Lucy Malory, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 247)

        “The attitude is paradoxical: the Zen poet believes the real experience of poetry lies somewhere beyond the words themselves but, like a good Confucian, believes simultaneously that only the perfect word perfectly placed has the power to reveal the authentic experience of the poem.”

        Sam Hamill, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page XVIII)

          “People often respond to the news of tragedy with ‘words fail,’ but words did not fail me that day, or the next, or thereafter—they poured out of me, first cautiously, then exuberantly, my mind awakening as if from a long slumber, thoughts tumbling out faster than my pen could keep up.”

          Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 106)

            “I take it as an elemental truth of life that words matter. This is so plain that we can ignore it a thousand times a day. The words we use shape how we understand ourselves, how we interpret the world, how we treat others. From Genesis to the aboriginal songlines of Australia, human beings have forever perceived that naming brings the essence of things into being. The ancient rabbis understood books, texts, the very letters of certain words as living, breathing entities. Words make worlds.”

            Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise (Page 15)

              “Words hang like wash on the line, blowing in the winds of the mind.”

              Rameshwar Das, Sunbeams (Page 15)

                “One day while studying a Yeats poem I decided to write poetry the rest of my life. I recognized that a single short poem has room for history, music, psychology, religious thought, mood, occult speculation, character, and events of one’s own life. I still feel surprised that such various substances can find shelter and nourishment in a poem. A poem in fact may be a sort of nourishing liquid, such as one uses to keep an amoeba alive. If prepared right, a poem can keep an image or a thought or insights on history or the psyche alive for years, as well as our desires and airy impulses.”

                Robert Bly, Sunbeams (Page 5)

                  “’If my opinion runs more than twenty pages,’ she said, ‘I am disturbed that I couldn’t do it shorter.’ The mantra in her chambers is ‘Get it right and keep it tight.’ She disdains legal Latin, and demands extra clarity in an opinion’s opening lines, which she hopes the public will understand. ‘If you can say it in plain English, you should,’ RBG says. Going through ‘innumerable drafts,’ the goal is to write an opinion where no sentence should need to be read twice. ‘I think that law should be a literary profession,’ RBG says, ‘and the best legal practitioners regard law as an art as well as a craft.’”

                  Irin Carmon, Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

                  Don’t Confuse The Pointing Finger With What’s Being Pointed At — On Understanding Words

                    Introduction: Fetch Me The Moon—A Short Zen Story

                    The Zen teacher’s dog loved his evening romp with his master. The dog would bound ahead to fetch a stick, then run back, wag his tail, and wait for the next game. On this particular evening, the teacher invited one of his brightest students to join him—a boy so intelligent that he became troubled by the contradictions in Buddhist doctrine.

                    Read More »Don’t Confuse The Pointing Finger With What’s Being Pointed At — On Understanding Words

                      “When enough people make false promises, words stop meaning anything.  Then there are no more answers, only better and better lies.” ~ Jon Snow, Game of Thrones