Etymologies Quotes & Sayings

The truth thy speech doth show, within my heart reproves the swelling pride.
[It., Lo tuo ver dir m'incuora
Buona umilta e gran tumor m'appiani.] — Dante Alighieri

We favor the simple expression of the complex thought. We are for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth. — Mark Rothko

Whether you want to be the best at your job, or at sports, just do your best. Give it everything you have. — Nick Newell

I have a good memory for words, and when I come upon a word I don't know, I remember it, or try to - it's almost like a tic. I also just have a good feeling for how words are made and formed in English and the etymologies that give you prefixes and suffixes. — Michael Chabon

ADAMS. This is a great work, Sir. How are you to get all the etymologies? JOHNSON. Why, Sir, here is a shelf with Junius, and Skinner, and others; and there is a Welch gentleman who has published a collection of Welch proverbs, who will help me with the Welch. ADAMS. But, Sir, how can you do this in three years? JOHNSON. Sir, I have no doubt that I can do it in three years. ADAMS. But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary. JOHNSON. Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman. — Samuel Johnson

(an excellent man, with whom I am sorry now that I did not converse more often, for, even if he cared nothing for the arts, he knew a great many etymologies) — Marcel Proust

My taste runs to hourglasses, maps, seventeenth-century typefaces, etymologies, the taste of coffee, and the prose of Robert Louis Stevenson. — Jorge Luis Borges

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

Economic globalization creates wealth, but only for the elite who benefit from the surge of consolidations, mergers, global scale technology, and financial activity. — Anita Roddick

If we don't understand how metaphor works we will misunderstand most of what we read in the Bible. No matter how carefully we parse our Hebrew and Greek sentences, no matter how precisely we use our dictionaries and trace our etymologies, no matter how exactly we define the words on the page, if we do not appreciate the way a metaphor works we will never comprehend the meaning of the text. — Eugene H. Peterson

Paradoxically, our imperial global Anglo-American language is dull with the glitter of its own decay. In response, the new meta- physical poet might consider the following cleansing strategies: keep faith with the canonical writers of the past, study Homeric Greek, excavate etymologies, embrace threatened languages, practice the fine art of translation, listen regularly to the musical flow of the breath and the beat of the heart, switch off the television, become a votary of silence.
Here lies the beginning of freedom. — Peter Abbs

To show our simple skill, That is the true beginning of our end. — William Shakespeare

I grew up in the countryside in the middle of nowhere in England and got out as soon as I could! — Rupert Friend

I saw money change votes.I mean, they just seem unaware of this, that money is something - if they want to see the appearance of corruption, all they had to do was look in Las Vegas last weekend. — Mark Shields

Overall, compassionate people tended to be healthier, happier, more popular, and more successful at work. Most — Dan Harris