Etymological Quotes & Sayings

In the early part of the ninth century, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, a mathematician working in Baghdad, wrote a seminal textbook in which he highlighted the usefulness of restoring a quantity being subtracted (like 2, above) by adding it to the other side of an equation. He called this process al-jabr (Arabic for "restoring"), which later morphed into "algebra." Then, long after his death, he hit the etymological jackpot again. His own name, al-Khwarizmi, lives on today in the word "algorithm. — Steven H. Strogatz

The worldly life means a factory of pain and pleasure. — Dada Bhagwan

Aleister Crowley once stated that the most important grimoire, or book of magical instruction, that anyone could ever conceivably own would be an etymological dictionary, and in my opinion he was exactly right. I keep it right here by my desk, and just 10 minutes ago it confirmed for me that I had the spelling of "proprioception" right all along, even though my spell-checker had raised a crinkly red eyebrow. — Alan Moore

Dr. Luce introduced the concept of "periphescence". The word itself means nothing; Luce made it up to avoid any etymological associations. The state of periphescence, however, is well known. It denotes the first fever of human pair bonding. It causes giddiness, elation, a tickling on the chest wall, the urge to climb a balcony on the rope of the beloved's hair. Periphescence denotes the inital drugged and happy bedtime where you sniff your lover like a scented poppy for hours running. (It lasts, Luce explained, up to two years
tops.) — Jeffrey Eugenides

The more government takes in taxes, the less incentive people have to work. What coal miner or assembly-line worker jumps at the offer of overtime when he knows Uncle Sam is going to take sixty percent or more of his extra pay? ... Any system that penalizes success and accomplishment is wrong. Any system that discourages work, discourages productivity, discourages economic progress, is wrong. If, on the other hand, you reduce tax rates and allow people to spend or save more of what they earn, they'll be more industrious; they'll have more incentive to work hard, and money they earn will add fuel to the great economic machine that energizes our national progress. The result: more prosperity for all - and more revenue for government.4 — Donald J. Trump

Black folk etymological theory posits that motherfucker was a term developed by the children of enslaved Africans in the United States. According to this theory, the neoligism was invented by these children as the best way to refer to white slavemasters, who enacted a particularly savage form of physical and sexual abuse on the bodies and spirits of Black women. To make if painfully plain : It was used to describe the White men who raped your mother in order to break the black family down, physically and pyschologically, as a means to avoid calling your slavemaster your "father. — H. Samy Alim

Every image is in some way a "portrait," not in the way that it would reproduce the traits of a person, but in that it pulls and draws (this is the semantic and etymological sense of the word), in that it extracts something, an intimacy, a force. — Sally Mann

If we measured our affection toward others by how many nicknames we bestow upon them, our pets would be the most loved. Here's the etymological journey for the nicknames I have for Tobey: Tobito, Toblerone. T-Bone. T-bonics. Ta-T. Ta-Tobes. Tubby, for when he's gotten into the trash and gorged himself. Nicknames with origins based on appearance: Bearded Yum Yum, Handsome McHandsome, Fuzzy Face. Then this strange progression: Pooch. Poochers. Poocharoo. Poochacho. Pachune. Then, somehow, Pooch turned into Mooch, and so there had to be Moocharo. Muchacho. Manu, and most recently Man-nu-nu. All these monikers I say in voices more commonly echoed from the confines of straightjackets and padded walls. Anyone we truly love should come with their own dictionary. — Carrie Brownstein

I credit chiropractic care for maintaining my health to keep up the pace of my career. — Jane Russell

There is a God," I said absentmindedly as my sisters spoke of spirituality.

"Oh yeah?" Elizabeth snapped, not rudely, but in disbelief. "How do you know?"

"She told me."

"Huh?" Miaka chimed in.

"The Ocean told me. He's there. He makes the waves and the storms, She just has to be strong enough to hold them. She wouldn't need us if She could bring the storm to the ship. She is the most powerful thing we know of, and yet, She has to yield. Trust me, there is a God."

They stared at me for a while. Probably because that was the most I had said in weeks. Those words comforted me because I was tired of answering to Her, obeying Her, bending to Her. It gave me the deepest comfort I had felt in a while to remember that there was Someone, Something out there who could squash Her. — Kiera Cass

So we down-to-earth, gutsy, tough, realistic, and practical types have just been squandering billions of dollars and unimaginable amounts of energy, nerve-work, and materials in whizzing off to the moon to discover, as astronomers knew before, that it was just a dreary slag heap. This is the true, original and scientifically etymological meaning of being lunatics. Crying for the moon. — Alan Watts

All thinking of the religious man is etymological, a reduction of all concepts to the original intuition, to the characteristic. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Live Life with No Regrets. If it's still on your mind, it is worth doing it. — Leanne Bermuda

We must therefore turn to history for enlightenment; here we find that none of the proclaimed anarchist groups correspond to the libertarian position, that even the best of them have unrealistic and socialistic elements in their doctrines. Furthermore, we find that all of the current anarchists are irrational collectivists, and therefore at opposite poles from our position. We must therefore conclude that we are not anarchists, and that those who call us anarchists are not on firm etymological ground, and are being completely unhistorical. — Murray Rothbard

[The] defining characteristics of good prose [are]: a preference for short sentences diversified by an occasionally very long one; a tone that is relaxed and almost colloquial; a large vocabulary that enjoys exploiting the different etymological and social levels of words; and an insistence on verbal and logical precision. — F.W. Bateson

Sometimes, as practice for trying to convince myself that God exists, I try to convince my shadow that the sun exists. — Robert Breault

A celebration of insignificance. Is that all we are in the end? — Steven Erikson

Washington, D.C. in 1942 was not the easiest place in the world for a Negro to get along. — Gordon Parks

In ancient Greece, the word for "cook," "butcher," and "priest" was the same - mageiros - and the word shares an etymological root with "magic. — Michael Pollan

Students who take Latin are more proficient and earn higher scores on the verbal SAT exam. The business world has long recognized the importance of a rich vocabulary and rates it high as evidence of executive potential and success. Understanding the etymological history of a word gives the user vividness, color, punch, and precision. It also seems that the clearer and more numerous our verbal images, the greater our intellectual power. Wheelock's Latin is profuse with the etymological study of English and vocabulary enrichment. Our own experiences have shown that students will not only remember vocabulary words longer and better when they understand their etymologies, but also will use them with a sharper sense of meaning and nuance. — Frederic M. Wheelock

He heard the sound of waves striking the shore, and it was as though the surging of his young blood was keeping time with the movement of the sea's great tides. It was doubtless because nature itself satisfied his need that Shinji felt no particular lack of music in his everyday life. — Yukio Mishima

risks. Thus we take it for granted that, when a relationship to a special loved person is endangered, we are not only anxious but are usually angry as well. As responses to the risk of loss, anxiety and anger go hand in hand. It is not for nothing that they have the same etymological root. — John Bowlby

. . .legends, which in the etymological sense are what one should pass on, are only the symbols of a tradional truth transported from one generation to the next. — Jean Markale

High-level actors can be all about their close-ups and the size of their trailers. I'd heard these horror stories of how a really powerful actor can come in and change your script. — Neill Blomkamp

A crassly arbitrary method can be avoided only when it is accepted that etymological statements are historical and not authoritative and that semantic statements must be based on the social linguistic consciousness related to usage. — James Barr