Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Almost any word can be drafted to serve as a verb, even words we think of as eternal and unchanging, stuck in their more traditional roles.
The purpose of paragraphing is to give the reader a rest. The writer is saying . . . : Have you got that? If so, I'll go to the next point.
See yourself as a small child, fragile and vulnerable, and breathe in. Smile with love to this small child within yourself, and breathe out.
If you say 'anti-aging,' how anti would it have to be, really? My guess is not much. Any amount of sunscreen could be considered anti-aging.
Most of the words you know and love and use every day are not words you learned by looking them up in a dictionary and reading a definition.
By the time the traditionally male lexicographers become interested in looking at fashion words, their origins are lost in the mists of time.
If you're talking about how you promoted synergy in an organization, that could mean you just got everybody together for donuts twice a week.
In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate-look to his character.
One of the joys of language is its constant evolution, and a lexicographer's job is both to track new words and to reassess those from the past.
The man who has half a million of dollars in property... has a much higher interest in the government, than the man who has little or no property.
Those who run to long words are mainly the unskillful and tasteless; they confuse pomposity with dignity, flaccidity with ease, and bulk with force.
The Bible must be considered as the great source of all the truth by which men are to be guided in government as well as in all social transactions.
Language is the expression of ideas, and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas they cannot retain an identity of language.
The enduring image I will keep of Jane Goodall is of her emotional goodbye to a chimp she had rescued and nurtured, on the day of the animal's release.
Above all, Jane Goodall continues to teach us that, as humans, we are no more entitled to our glorious planet than the chimps she so lovingly protects.
Might his last glance behold the glorious ensign of the Republic still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in all their original lustre.
The ecclesiastical establishments of Europe which serve to support tyrannical governments are not the Christian religion but abuses and corruptions of it.
I love American English, not least because a lot of it was ours to begin with. Indeed, many Americanisms can be found in the works of William Shakespeare.
In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed.
I work with the Oxford Dictionary databases, which sounds really boring, but they're actually fascinating as they show you how current words are being used.
I also think people should never turn down an opportunity to hold a baby. There's something about the feeling of a new baby in your arms that just fixes you.
I think we would all like to believe that every new event demands a new word. But we're environmentally conscious with our words. We recycle words we've got.
In all my years in 'Countdown's' Dictionary Corner, the subject most guaranteed to rankle with our viewers is the presence of Americanisms in the dictionary.
When I was growing up, I worried that people would dismiss me as a boring swot because I always had my nose in a vocabulary book - usually in French or German.
Among the best of Hitchcock's own psychological thrillers is 'Spellbound,' whose story unusually wrapped the subject of psychoanalysis around a murder mystery.
The writer's Queen Victoria is his public, and he would do well to keep a bust of the old Queen on his desk with the legend "We are not amused" hanging from it.
A pure democracy is generally a very bad government, It is often the most tyrannical government on earth; for a multitude is often rash, and will not hear reason.
The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities, and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.
No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.
The Moral Law is summarily contained in the Decalogue or Ten Commandments; written by the finger of God on two tablets of stone, and delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai.
To exterminate our popular vices is a work of far more importance to the character and happiness of our citizens than any other improvements in our system of education.
There is an art to eavesdropping, but I think to some extent we are all guilty of picking up those little odds and ends that can be quite intriguing if you analyse them.
New words travel from one variety of English to another and at a rapidly increasing rate, thanks to the way language is exchanged today over e-mail, chat rooms, TV, etc.
I've been collecting linguistic oddities for years and years, ever since I was small. I've got loads of notebooks where I've jotted down things I couldn't make sense of.
When eyeliner was introduced in the Twenties by Max Factor, a pioneer of Hollywood film cosmetics who began selling to the public, even the word 'makeup' was a revelation.
Uniforms are intended to make the wearer look as strong as possible. Soldiers could fight in leotards, but that's never going to happen because leotards aren't intimidating.
Any system of education...which limits instruction to the arts and sciences and rejects the aids of religion in forming the characters of citizens, is essentially defective.
As dialect began to be collected in the late 19th century, such words as Yorkshire's 'gobslotch' emerged, revealing the burgeoning association between gluttony and stupidity.
Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.
The education of youth, an employment of more consequence than making laws and preaching the gospel, because it lays the foundation on which both law and gospel rest for success.
Most crime novels offer a curious kind of escape, to places that jag the nerves and worry the mind. Their rides of suspense give a good thrill, but it's rarely a comfortable one.
New words can spread like wildfire thanks to social media - you only have to look at 'mansplaining' and 'milkshake duck' to see language evolution at work - so why not old ones too?
People say to me, ‘How do I know if a word is real?’ You know, anybody who’s read a children’s book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it. That makes it real.
In some countries the common people are not permitted to read the Bible at all. In ours, it is as common as a newspaper and in schools is read with nearly the same degree of respect.
The term 'psychological thriller' is an elastic one these days, tagged liberally on to any story of suspense that explores motivations while keeping blood and chainsaws to a minimum.
The earliest dictionaries were collections of criminal slang, swapped amongst ne'er-do-wells as a means of evading the authorities or indeed any outsider who might threaten the trade.
Almost half the adult population finds discussing the subject of money difficult. Slang words help us to navigate these conversations by making us feel more comfortable and confident.
The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good and the best corrector of all that is evil in human society; the best book for regulating the temporal [secular] concerns of men.
For me, conferences are like little mental vacations: a chance to go visit an interesting place for a couple of days, and come back rested and refreshed with new ideas and perspectives.
Vulgarity finds its antidote; old crudities become softened with time. Distinctions, both those that are useful and those that are burdensome, flourish and die, reflourish and die again.