Man Without Words Quotes & Sayings

I would destroy that pussy."
"You think so?" I ask, those words making parts of me tingle that haven't come alive in quite a while, like a match being struck and finally finding a flame.
"Without a doubt," he says, not letting up. "I'd wreck you for any man that came along after me, put them all to shame, because I'd give you exactly what you wanted."
"How could you possibly know what I want?"
"Because," he says, grabbing a fistful of my hair and twisting my head, forcing me to turn away from him. "Looking at you is like looking in a mirror, Scarlet. — J.M. Darhower

I'm an alien in my own world, a writer without words, a musician without a piano, a magician without a wand. I am fooled by infinite words that rush in my blood, yet imprisoned by the very thoughts of silence. I'm a gray green fallow leaf on trees and abandoned on the streets, a never-ending spring season and an eternal autumn. I'm the golden of the sun and the silver of the moon, the fog of dawn and the amber of dusk. I'm the white and the red flag , the obedient and the rebel. I am the coward in the brave, and the child in the man. I am, but a writer. — Nema Al-Araby

When a man says "I know what I mean, but I can't express it," he generally does not know what he means - for there can be no knowledge without words; there can only be feelings. — Sydney J. Harris

Among the many worlds which man did not receive as a gift of nature, but which he created with his own mind, the world of books is the greatest. Every child, scrawling his first letters on his slate and attempting to read for the first time, in so doing, enters an artificial and complicated world; to know the laws and rules of this world completely and to practice them perfectly, no single human life is long enough. Without words, without writing, and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity. And if anyone wants to try to enclose in a small space in a single house or single room, the history of the human spirit and to make it his own, he can only do this in the form of a collection of books. — Hermann Hesse

Words are things, but things which mean. We cannot do away with meaning without doing away with signs, that is, with language itself. Moreover, we would have to do away with the universe. All the things man touches are impregnated with meaning. — Octavio Paz

Ars Poetica

I taught my words to love,
I showed them my heart
and would not give up until their syllables
did not start to beat.

I showed them trees
and what words wouldn't rustle
I hanged, without pity, from the branches.

In the end, words
needed to resemble both me
and the world.

Then
I came to me,
I braced myself between two banks
of a river,
to present a bridge,
a bridge between a bull's horn and grass,
between black stars of light and earth,
between the temple of a woman's head and a man's,
letting words travel over me
like racing cars, electric trains,
only so they could cross faster,
only so they would learn to transport the world,
from itself,
to itself. — Nichita Stanescu

The boon of language is not tenderness. All that it holds, it holds with exactitude and without pity, even a term of endearment; the word is impartial: the usage is all. The boon of language is that potentially it is complete, it has the potentiality of holding with words the totality of human experience--everything that has occurred and everything that may occur. It even allows space for the unspeakable. In this sense one can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannot be hostile to man. For prose this home is a vast territory, a country which it crosses through a network of tracks, paths, highways; for poetry this home is concentrated on a single center, a single voice, and this voice is simultaneously that of an announcement and a response to it. — John Berger

The word and the image mutually excluded each other. Joseph was a literary man to his very marrow; he put faith in the invisible Word; it was the most miraculous thing in all the world; though without form it had more power than anything endowed with form — Lion Feuchtwanger

Freedom, sir," I began unceremoniously, without greeting or inquiry, "freedom is the biggest thing for man. Nothing can be compared to it - nothing at all!" Surprised at my outburst, my master looked up at me in silence. "One can understand nothing from books," I went on. "We read in the scriptures that our desires are bonds, fettering us as well as others. But such words, by themselves, are so empty. It is only when we get to the point of letting the bird out of its cage that we can realize how free the bird has set us. Whatever we cage, shackles us with desire whose bonds are stronger than those of iron chains. I tell you, sir, this is just what the world has failed to understand. They all seek to reform something outside themselves. But reform is wanted only in one's own desires, nowhere else, nowhere else! — Rabindranath Tagore

Each man is contained and constrained, on entering social life, to fit his own life in, just as he fits his words and thoughts into a language that was formed without and before him and which is impervious to his power. Entering the game, as it were, whether of belonging to a nation or of using a language, a man enters arrangements which it does not fall to him to determine, but only to learn and respect the rules. — Alain Finkielkraut

I am terribly glad to be alive and when I have wit enough to think about it, terribly proud to be a man and an American with all the rights and privileges that those words connote. And most of all I am humbled before the responsibilities that are also mine. For no right comes without a responsibility and being born luckier than most of the world's millions, I am also born more obligated. — Wallace Stegner

Amelia told me once about a suspicion she'd had for a while. It bothered her quite a bit. She said that Win and I had fallen ill with scarlet fever, and you made the deadly nightshade syrup, you'd concocted far more than was necessary. And you kept a cup on it on Win's nightstand, like some sort of macabre nightcap. Amelia said that if Win had died, she thought you would have taken the rest of that poison. And I've always hated you for that. Because you forced me to stay alive without the woman I loved, while you had no bloody hell intention of doing the same."
Merripen didn't answer, gave no sign that he registered Leo's words.
"Christ, man," Leo said huskily. "If you had the bollocks to die with her, don't you think you could work up the courage to live with her? — Lisa Kleypas

What tender and devoted mother wouldn't be dismayed and ill with terror at her son's or daughter's stepping even one hair's breath off the beaten track. No, better let him be happy and live in comfort without originality, is what every mother thinks when she rocks the cradle. The only person among us who can fail to reach the general's rank is the original man - in other words, the man who won't be quiet. — Fyodor Dostoevsky

But as they walked home together through the leaf-plastered streets, under that eerie refulgence, her father seemed to have divined her plans. This was in his manner, not his words: they were halfway home before he spoke. "Amanda," he said. He paused. "I want you to realize the consequences before you do something youll be sorry for." He did not look at her, and she too kept her eyes to the front. "You know that when I say a thing I mean it - I mean it to the hilt. So tell your young man this, Amanda. Tell him that the day you marry without my consent I'll cut you off without a dime. Without so much as one thin dime, Amanda. I'll cut you off, disown you, and what is more I'll never regret it. I'll never so much as think your name again." Up to now he had spoken slowly, pausing between phrases. But now the words came fast, like fencing thrusts. "Tell your young man that, Amanda, and see what he says." Major — Shelby Foote

If a man has to say trust me it's a sure sign you cannot. Trust him, that is. Trust is a thing you do without words. — Juliet Marillier

The phrase 'nature and nurture' is a convenient jingle of words, for it separates under two distinct heads the innumerable elements of which personality is composed. Nature is all that a man brings with himself into the world; nurture is every influence without that affects him after his birth. — Francis Galton

As ships meet at sea a moment together, when words of greeting must be spoken, and then away upon the deep, so men meet in this world; and I think we should cross no man's path without hailing him, and if he needs giving him supplies. — Henry Ward Beecher

In other words, the problem of empire-building is essentially mystical. It must somehow foster the impression that a man is great in the degree that his nation is great; that a German as such is superior to a Belgian as such; an Englishman, to an Irishman; an American, to a Mexican: merely because the first-named countries are in each case more powerful than their comparatives. And people who have no individual stature whatever are willing to accept this poisonous nonsense because it gives them a sense of importance without the trouble of any personal effort. — Felix Morley

Why do you consult [women's] words when it is not their mouths that speak? Consult their eyes, their colour, their breathing, their timid manner, their slight resistance, that is the language nature gave them for your answer. The lips always say 'No,' and rightly so; but the tone is not always the same, and that cannot lie. Has not a woman the same needs as a man, but without the same right to make them known? Her fate would be too cruel if she had no language in which to express her legitimate desires except the words which she dare not utter. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Life was not easy, nor was it happy, but she did not expect life to be easy, and, if it was not happy, that was woman's lot. It was a man's world, and she accepted it as such. The man owned the property, and the woman managed it. The man took credit for the management, and the woman praised his cleverness. The man roared like a bull when a splinter was in his finger, and the woman muffled the moans of childbirth, lest she disturb him. Men were rough of speech and often drunk. Women ignored the lapses of speech and put the drunkards to bed without bitter words. Men were rude and outspoken, women were always kind, gracious and forgiving. — Margaret Mitchell

What kind of self-respecting man doesn't read? That's like saying he doesn't feel the need to eat or bathe either. Reading is nurturing of the mind ... a cleansing of the soul. It opens our eyes to unseen beauty, and our hearts to the untouched pieces of ourselves that we've hidden away from the world. A man without words is a man who has no real awareness of anything or anyone outside of himself. — S.L. Jennings

I have seen these persons speak unthinkingly, not realizing that to speak is also to be. Word and gesture are man's thought. We should not speak without reason. — Isabel Allende

The knights nodded with exaggerated casualness, showing respect for the wizard but not fear. Or so they thought. The fear came in the way they parted for the old man, took a half step back without really thinking about it.
That's one of the things you learn to do when you study acting. You watch the nonverbal cues. That's what gives a performance depth. The knights were all like, "Hey, Merlin, what's up?" But get past the easy words and bluff tone and you saw faces drawn back, bodies turned at an angle to protect the vitals, an unconscious cringe. — K.A. Applegate

I was a young man with a completely normal sex drive, who was encouraged to study the scriptures," he said. "I memorized all of it." He stroked her lips. ""Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet ... Thou hast ravished my heart.""
Something stricken banished the laughter from her gaze. "Yes," she whispered. "That's what it feels like."
All the words burned away, and he stood silent, without language or barriers, holding on to her bare, warm waist. He felt like he might drown if he let go. He might drown anyway, but if he did, he needed to bring her with him. — Thea Harrison

If I go out of public life with one feeling, with one conviction, it is this : a deep regret for many bitter words I have used in my life, deep sincere repentance for my violence of language. But I hope they will be forgiven me by God and man, because not once in all my life have I attacked anybody unjustly from my point of view, and without believing it was my duty to do so. — Henri Bourassa

But then in all his words if not deeds Jefferson was so beautifully human, so eminently vague, so entirely dishonest but not in any meretricious way. Rather it was a passionate form of self-delusion that rendered Jefferson as president and as man (not to mention as writer of tangled sentences and lunatic metaphors) confusing even to his admirers. Proclaiming the unalienable rights of man for everyone (excepting slaves, Indians, women and those entirely without property), Jefferson tried to seize the Floridas by force, dreamed of a conquest of Cuba, and after his illegal purchase of Louisiana sent a military governor to rule New Orleans against the will of its inhabitants. — Gore Vidal

[Howard Roark] was asked for a statement, and he received a group of reporters in his office. He spoke without anger. He said:
'I can't tell anyone anything about my building. If I prepared a hash of words to stuff into other people's brains, it would be an insult to them and to me. But I am glad you came here. I do have something to say. I want to ask every man who is interested in this to go and see the building, to look at it and then to use words of his own mind, if he cares to speak.'
The Banner printed the interview as follows:
'Mr. Roark, who seems to be a publicity hound, received reporters with an air of swaggering insolence and stated that the public mind was hash. He did not choose to talk, but seemed well aware of the advertising angles of the situation. All he cared about, he explained, was to have his building seen by as many people as possible. — Ayn Rand

These glorious things-words-are man's right alone ... Without words we should know no more of each other's hearts and thoughts than the dog knows of his fellow dog ... for, if you will consider, you always think to yourself in words, though you do not speak them aloud; and without them all our thoughts would be mere blind longings, feelings which we could not understand ourselves. — Charles Kingsley

Rid of craving and without clinging, an expert in the study of texts, and understanding the right sequence of the words, he may indeed be called "In his last body", "Great in wisdom" and a "Great man." — Gautama Buddha

Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world" (Acts 15:18). From the beginning God purposed to glorify Himself "in the Church by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end" (Eph. 3:21). To this end, He created the world, and formed man. His all-wise plan was not defeated when man fell, for in the Lamb "slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8) we behold the Fall anticipated. Now will God's purpose be thwarted by the wickedness of men since the Fall, as is clear from the words of the psalmist, "Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain" (Ps. 76:10). — Arthur W. Pink

Lorcan heard the moan of the soldier pinned to the floor beneath his boot. With a sneer, he pushed his foot down harder on his neck. The worthless little bastard had failed him. He'd come back without the bitch.
He glanced over his shoulder at his lieutenants. They watched him, trying their best to hide their fear. But he could smell it. He looked back at the lowering suns. "I want my sister." He growled the words low. "I want my sister!" He slammed his foot down, snapping the man's neck and crushing his jaw. "Now get out of my sight!"
He heard them run from the room.
They better run.
He would have his sister. He would see the bitch dead if he had to destroy half the world to get to her. — G.A. Aiken

Bread baked without love is a bitter bread that feeds but half a man's hunger, - those who cannot work with their hearts achieve but a hollow, half-hearted success that breeds bitterness all around. If you are a writer who would secretly prefer to be a lawyer or a doctor, your written words will feed but half the hunger of your readers; if you are a teacher who would rather be a businessman, your instructions will meet but half the need for knowledge of your students; if you are a scientist who hates science, your performance will satisfy but half the needs of your mission. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Certainly we talk to ourselves; there is no thinking being who has not experienced that. One could even say that the word is never a more magnificent mystery than when, within a man, it travels from his thought to his conscience and returns from his conscience to his thought. This is the only sense of the words, so often used in this chapter, "he said," "he exclaimed"; we say to ourselves, we speak to ourselves, we exclaim within ourselves, without breaking the external silence. There is great tumult within; everything within us speaks, except the tongue. The realities of the soul, though not visible and palpable, are nonetheless realities. (pg. 226) — Victor Hugo

By the words "necessary of life" I mean whatever, of all that man obtains by his own exertions, has been from the first, or from long use has become, so important to human life that few, if any, ever attempt to do without it. To many creatures there is in this sense but one necessary of life, Food. The necessaries of life for man in this climate may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several heads of Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel; for not till we have secured these are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life with freedom and a prospect of success. — Henry David Thoreau

The extent to which perception and, consequently, vision are dependent upon memory and imagination is a matter of every day experience. We see familiar things more clearly then when we see objects about which we have no stock of memories. The old seamstress, who cannot read without glasses, can see to thread needle with the naked eye. Why? Because she is more familiar with needles then with print. In man who can work all day at the office without undue fatigue of the eyes is worn out by an hour at the museum and comes home with a splitting headache. Why? Because in the office he is following a regular routine and looking at words and figures, the bike of which he looks at every day; whereas in the museum everything is strange novel, and outlandish. — Aldous Huxley

At one time,' Golenishchev continued, either not observing or not willing to observe that both Anna and Vronsky wanted to speak, 'at one time a freethinker was a man who had been brought up in the conception of religion, law, and morality, who reached freethought only after conflict and difficulty. But now a new type of born freethinkers has appeared, who grow up without so much as hearing that there used to be laws of morality, or religion, that authorities existed. They grow up in ideas of negation in everything
in other words, utter savages. — Leo Tolstoy

Milton puts it most profoundly when he says, Well knows he who uses to consider, that our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise, as well as our limbs and complexion. Truth is compared in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only because his pastor says so, or the Assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy. In other words, the power of truth lies not in abstract propositions but in the understanding and willful application of truth by living, breathing persons which can occur only in the context of liberty. — Karen Swallow Prior

Boys Don't Cry

tell me why you're running from me?
is it love or money?
tell me why you shot right at me?
can't you see I'm happy?

like AK47 with words
semi-automatic, shoot (shoot) where it hurts
right in the bulls-eye
man up, man up
boys don't cry

na na, na na
boys don't cry
na na, na na

my best friends turned to demons
family left me beaten
now was that love or money?
you won't believe where I found freedom
on the bottom of the sea and
without love or money

like AK47 with words
semi-automatic, shoot (shoot) where it hurts
right in the bulls-eye
man up, man up
boys don't cry

na na, na na
boys don't cry
na na, na na

x2 — Xov

But, indeed, words are very rascals, since bonds [vows] disgraced them."
Viola: "Thy reason, man?"
Feste: "Troth [Truthfully], sir, I can yield you none without words, and words are grown so false, I am loathe to prove reason with them. — William Shakespeare

I cannot know what the future will bring us," he says in a rapid undertone. "I cannot know where you will be given in marriage, nor what life might hold for me. But I can't let you go without telling you
without telling you at least once
that I love you."
I snatch a breath at the words. "Woodville
"
"I can offer you nothing; I am next to nothing, and you are the greatest lady in France. But I wanted you to know, I love you and I want you, and I have done since the day I first saw you."
"I should
"
"I have to tell you, you have to know. I have loved you honorably as a knight should do his lady, and I have loved you passionately as a man might a woman; and now, before I leave you, I want to tell you that I love you, I love you
" He breaks off and looks at me desperately. "I had to tell you," he repeats. — Philippa Gregory

The moment illuminates the political Jefferson - a man who got his way quietly but unmistakably, without bluster or bombast, his words congenial but his will unwavering. — Jon Meacham

Jeremy, Perry, Andre, Steve and Reggie, Grant, You guys make me so much better without you even knowing man. 'Cause I know I set the example for y'all. I know there's days where I have my bad days, And I say some words I'm not supposed to say sometimes, But when I need an extra push, You guys are there man. And I appreciate that. I appreciate that because I'm not always the best leader, I'm not always the best player, I don't always shoot the best in the games, But, Our little handshakes that we do before the game, That gets me going. — Kevin Durant

Study changes a man, puts pride into him. You need it to get to the bottom of life. Without it you just skim the surface. You think you're in the know, but trifles throw you off. You dream too much. You content yourself with words instead of going deeper. That's not what you wanted. Intentions, appearances, no more. A man of character can't content himself with that. Medicine, even if I wasn't very gifted, had brought me a good deal closer to people, to animals, everything. Now all I had to do was plunge straight into the heart of things. Death is chasing you, you've got to hurry, and while you're looking you've got to eat, and keep away from wars. That's a lot of things to do. It's no picnic. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

She saw me as safe, and why shouldn't she? I was a man of the cloth, after all, bound by God to be a caregiver of his flock. Of course, she would assume that she could tease me, touch me, without bothering my priestly composure. How could she know what her words and voice did to me? How could she know that her hand was currently searing its outline onto my chest? — Sierra Simone

My design, the ancient man said, sucking his lips, is not to win battles with words but to convince the head and the heart of man that we must accept the world as it is, and peacefully; the world we live in is well ordered and offers rewarding riches to those who accept their place in it without protest. — Carlos Fuentes

If a woman tells a man the god favor him, everybody says she's far-minded.' The broom halted mid-sweep and the slave turned to Hild. 'But let a woman do what the gods tell her, without asking a man's permission first? Then she's possessed.' Unwen punctuated her words with her broom, jabbing it into the corner. — Rebecca Barnhouse

For verily it is not deep words that make a man holy and upright; it is a good life which maketh a man dear to God. I had rather feel contrition than be skilful in the definition thereof. If thou knewest the whole Bible, and the sayings of all the philosophers, what should all this profit thee without the love and grace of God? Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, save to love God, and Him only to serve. That is the highest wisdom, to cast the world behind us, and to reach forward to the heavenly kingdom. — Thomas A Kempis

- Help these boys build a nation their own. Ransack the histories for clues to their past. Plunder the literatures for words they can speak. And should you encounter an ancient tribe whose customs, however dimly, cast light on their hearts, tell them that tale; and you shall name the unspeakable names of your kind, and in that naming, in each such telling, they will falter a step to the light.
- For only with pride may a man prosper. With pride, all things follow. Without he have pride he is a shadowy skulk whose season is night. — Jamie O'Neill

Then it occured to me that the elicate shades of feeling, of reaction, are the result of communication, and without such communication they tend to disappear. A man with nothing to say has no words. — John Steinbeck

Your very best look, my queen, is the one you were born with. As far as I'm concerned, perfection can't be improved upon by either man nor God." Leaning in, he kissed her softly. "Just thought you'd want to know what your male's been thinking as I've been staring at you." Selena started to smile, especially as she realized that sometimes "I love you" could be said without those particular three words lined up in a row. "See?" she said softly. "I told you this was going to be the best night of my life. — J.R. Ward

A man like me cannot live without a hobby-horse, a consuming passion - in Schiller's words a tyrant. I have found my tyrant, and in his service I know no limits. My tyrant is psychology. it has always been my distant, beckoning goal and now since I have hit upon the neuroses, it has come so much the nearer. — Sigmund Freud

Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man - there never has been another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them as "The women, God help us!" or "The ladies, God bless them!"; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything "funny" about woman's nature. Dorothy Day, Catholic social activist and journalist — Sarah Bessey

By right, as the word is employed in this subject, has always been understood discretion, that is, a full and complete power of either doing a thing or omitting it, without the person's becoming liable to animadversion or censure from another, that is, in other words, without his incurring any degree of turpitude or guilt. Now in this sense I affirm that man has no rights, no discretionary power whatever. — William Godwin

If a man has to say trust me, Gogu conveyed, it's a sure sign you cannot. Trust him, that is. Trust is a thing you know without words. — Juliet Marillier

O, this faith is a living, busy, active, powerful thing! It is impossible that it should not be ceaselessly doing that which is good. It does not even ask whether good works should be done; but before the question can be asked, it has done them, and it is constantly engaged in doing them. But he who does not do such works, is a man without faith. He gropes and casts about him to find faith and good works, not knowing what either of them is, and yet prattles and idly multiplies words about faith and good works. — Martin Luther

The audience looked at him. They felt he had no chance. They could drop the nameless resentment, the sense of insecurity which he aroused in most people. And so, for the first time, they could see him as he was: a man totally innocent of fear. The fear of which they thought was not the normal kind, not a response to a tangible danger, but the chronic, unconfessed fear in which they all lived. They remembered the misery of the moments when, in loneliness, a man thinks of the bright words he could have said, but had not found, and hates those who robbed him of his courage. The misery of knowing how strong and able one is in one's own mind, the radiant picture never to be made real. Dreams? Self-delusion? Or a murdered reality, unborn, killed by that corroding emotion without name - fear - need - dependence - hatred? — Ayn Rand

Deep down, we all have our dark thoughts, Kathy. Mine are no different than any others. My life was planned for me, like my body was engineered to be what it is, a Prime Elite. But underneath it all I am still a man. Though I did not want this bonding at the beginning, it is now a part of me . . . and a part of you. We will work things out, my wife and we will do it together, that is what I accept. Also," he adjusted his arm around her, feeling her discomfort. "I know that without you there is an emptiness that I cannot put into words. It is an emptiness that I will not live with. Thus, I do not wish to be free of you . . . ever. — K.L. Tharp

These were the best moments. The kisses that just happened - that could only happen with Zed, the only man he felt fully comfortable with. Kisses were intimate and personal. They were promises without words. And, really, who needed words? Felix's tongue never got him into trouble when he was kissing. — Kelly Jensen

Like a fine flower, beautiful to look at but without scent, fine words are fruitless in a man who does not act in accordance with them. — Gautama Buddha

Daffy had stopped talking, without her noticing. It was if he'd run out of words. He did a peculiar thing, then; he reached out and touched Mary's cheekbone; lightly, as if he was brushing away a speck of coal dust. She thought of Doll, that first morning, wiping mud out of the lost child's eyes. Her throat hurt, all at once, as if she were swallowing a stone. She wished the two of them could stay forever frozen in this moment, hidden in the grass, as the setting sun slid across the fields of Monmouth. Before any asking, any refusal. While this strange, tame young man was still looking at her as is she were worth any price. — Emma Donoghue

Right here let me make as vigorous a plea as I know how in favor of saying nothing that we do not mean, and of acting without hesitation up to whatever we say. A good many of you are probably acquainted with the old proverb: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick
you will go far.' If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble; and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power. In private life there are few beings more obnoxious than the man who is always loudly boasting; and if the boaster is not prepared to back up his words his position becomes absolutely contemptible. So it is with the nation. It is both foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification, and, above all, in loose-tongued denunciation of other peoples. — Theodore Roosevelt

Words have divided man from woman,
one from another, this from that,
until only sages know how to put things together.
Without words, without even understanding,
lovers find each other.
The moment of finding is always a surprise,
like meeting an old friend never before known. — Laozi

A gap will yawn, achingly, day by day, it will turn into a colossal pit, an abyss without foundation, a gradual invasion of words by margins, blank and insignificant, so that all of us, to a man, will find nothing to say. — Georges Perec

He who has learnt to control his tongue has attained self-control in a great measure. When such a person speaks he will be heard with respect and attention. His words will be remembered, for they will be good and true. When one who is established in truth prays with a pure heart, then things he really needs come to him when they are really needed: he does not have to run after them. The man firmly established in truth gets the fruit of his actions without apparently doing anything. God, the source of all truth, supplies his needs and looks after his welfare. — B.K.S. Iyengar

What of the Parliament? Or the succession of the marquessate?"

"Don't you see?" He shook his head, searching for the words, he who was known for his eloquence on the floor of the House of Lords. "None of that matters. Without you, I am a shadow of a man, a wisp. Parliament, even the marquessate, can survive without me, but I cannot survive without you. — Elizabeth Hoyt

There is many a man without learning will get the better of a college-bred man, and will have better words, too. — Lady Gregory

We live without feeling the country beneath our feet,
our words are inaudible from ten steps away.
Any conversation, however brief,
gravitates, gratingly, toward the Kremlin's mountain man.
His greasy fingers are thick as worms,
his words weighty hammers slamming their target.
His cockroach moustache seems to snicker,
and the shafts of his high-topped boots gleam.
Amid a rabble of scrawny-necked chieftains,
he toys with the favors of such homunculi.
One hisses, the other mewls, one groans, the other weeps;
he prowls thunderously among them, showering them with scorn.
Forging decree after decree, like horseshoes,
he pitches one to the belly, another to the forehead,
a third to the eyebrow, a fourth in the eye.
Every execution is a carnival
that fills his broad Ossetian chest with delight. — Osip Mandelstam

Epictetus, the pagan philosopher, proved in his life the truth of his own words - "A man can be happy without wealth, without family, without office or honor, without health, without anything that the world seeks after. — Orison Swett Marden

If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. — Ray Bradbury

And suddenly the miracle happens. I look across at the woman who has just made some coffee and is now reading the newspaper, whose eyes look tired and desperate, who is her usual silent self, who does not always show her affection in gestures, the woman who made me say yes when i wanted to say no, who forced me to fight for what she, quiet rightly, believed was my reason for living, who let me set off alone because her love for me was greater even than her love for herself, who made me go in serch of my dream,; and suddenly, seeing that small, quiet woman, whose eyes said more than words, who was often terrified inside, but always courageous in her actions, who could love someone without humbling herself and who never ever apologized for fighting for her man - suddenly. my fingers press down on the keys. — Paulo Coelho

There are no words and there is no singing, but the music has a voice. It is an old voice and a deep voice, like the stump of a sweet cigar or a shoe with a hole. It is a voice that has lived and lives, with sorrow and shame, ecstasy and bliss, joy and pain, redemption and damnation. It is a voice with love and without love. I like the voice, and though I can't talk to it, I like the way it talks to me. It says it is all the same, Young Man. Take it and let it be. — James Frey

I read recently in an article by G.K. Chesterton, that sex without gestation and parturition is like blowing the trumpets and waving the flags without doing any of the fighting. From a woman such words, though displaying inexperience, might come with dignity; from a man they are an unforgivable, intolerable insult. What is man's part in sex but a perpetual waving of flags and blowing of trumpets and avoidance of the fighting? — Dora Russell

Poets to Come
POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for;
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known,
Arouse! Arouse
for you must justify me
you must answer.
I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment, only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.
I am a man who, sauntering along, without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you, and then averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main things from you. — Walt Whitman

It's a shame you left without a word, you know. She was just beginning to trust you before that. Before you got angry. Before you ran off. Just like every other man in her life. Lusting after her, full of sweet words, then just walking away. Leaving her alone. Good thing she's used to it by now, isn't it? Otherwise you might have hurt her. Otherwise you just might have broken that poor girl's heart — Patrick Rothfuss

But the real cause was, that the people, in electing their representatives to the grand council, were particular in choosing them for their talents at talking, without inquiring whether they possessed the more rare, difficult, and oft-times important talent of holding their tongues. The consequence was, that this deliberative body was composed of the most loquacious men in the community. As they considered themselves placed there to talk, every man concluded that his duty to his constituents, and, what is more, his popularity with them, required that he should harangue on every subject, whether he understood it or not. There was an ancient mode of burying a chieftain, by every soldier throwing his shield full of earth on the corpse, until a mighty mound was formed; so, whenever a question was brought forward in this assembly, every member pressing forward to throw on his quantum of wisdom, the subject was quickly buried under a mountain of words. — Washington Irving

John Knox's dying words were, 'Lord, grant true pastors to Thy kirk.' Such was the last prayer of a great man without whom there would have been no America, no Puritans, no Pilgrims, no Scottish covenanters, no Presbyterians, no Patrick Henry, no Samuel Adams, no George Washington. Could it have been so simple? John Knox's agenda was far from political. All he wanted were more pastors and elders. This is our agenda. Lord grant true pastors to Thy church! — Kevin Swanson

Suddenly he realised why so many of the inmates went to the young man to talk. It was the silence. The beckoning vacuum of someone who simply listens without reaction or judgement. Who extracts your words and your secrets from you without doing anything at all. — Jo Nesbo

This was a vagrant of sixty-five, who was going to prison for not playing the flute; or, in other words, for begging in the streets, and doing noting for his livelihood. In the next cell, was another man, who was going to the same prison for hawking tin saucepans without a licence; thereby doing something for his living, in defiance of the Stamp-office. — Charles Dickens

If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such horror as I have hardly words to
Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you. Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open? Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?
They had reached the end of the gallery, and with tears of shame she ran off to her own room. — Jane Austen

Man is born unto the trouble as the sparks fly upwards.' In other words suffering is germane to our existence; indeed, how without it, should we be able to 'fly upwards — Andrei Tarkovsky

A man without words is a man without thought. — John Steinbeck

Not one man in a million would have allowed me the time without speaking. I opened my mind, let my gaurd down completely, relaxed. His silence washed over me. I stood, closed my eyes, breathed out the relief that was too profound for words. — Charlaine Harris

"Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! To all the sensual world proclaim, One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name". Do not then (concludes the Stoic) take good words in your mouth, and prate before applauding citizens of honour, duty, and so forth, while you make your private lives a mere selfish calculation of expediency. We were surely born for nobler ends than this, and none who is worthy the name of a man would subscribe to doctrines which destroy all honour and all chivalry. The heroes of old time won their immortality not by weighing pleasures and pains in the balance, but by being prodigal of their lives, doing and enduring all things for the sake of their fellow-men. — W. Lucas Collins

A hymn for freedom;
without border barriers and barbed wire fences.
A hymn for freedom;
without astute words.
A hymn for freedom;
without wars of every man against every man.
A hymn to freedom;
at any time and any place,
because only freedom will set us free. — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

When a man makes a poem, makes it, mind you, he takes words as he finds them interrelated about him and composes them - without distortion which would mar their exact significances - into an intense expression of his perceptions and ardors that they may constitute a revelation in the speech that he uses. It isn't what he says that counts as a work of art, it's what he makes, with such intensity of perception that it lives with an intrinsic movement of its own to verify its authenticity. — William Carlos Williams

The man of my dreams is almost faded now. The one I have created in my mind. The sort of man each woman dreams of in her most secret and deepest part of her heart. I could almost see him now before me. What would I say to him if he were really here? Forgive me, I've never known this feeling. I've lived without it all my life. Is it any wonder that I fail to recognize it? You brought it to me for the first time. Is there any way I can tell you how my life has changed? Anyway at all, to let you know what sweetness you have given me? There's so much to say
and I can't find the words
except for these ... I love you. That is what I would say to him if he were really here. — Richard Matheson

They're your family. Anyone can see that you love them.
He stills as if he's absorbing my words. "Most people believe I'm incapable of feeling anything."
Outrage punches through my chest like a burning fist. In that moment, I know I'd go to war for this man. Even if he hated every second of it. No one should have to face the world without someone at their back. Especially not someone as dedicated as Gabriel. — Kristen Callihan

I beg your pardon; I am drunk without a drink. English wine & words are vulnerable to every man. — Santosh Kalwar

A map in the hands of a pilot is a testimony of a man's faith in other men; it is a symbol of confidence and trust. It is not like a printed page that bears mere words, ambiguous and artful, and whose most believing reader - even whose author, perhaps - must allow in his mind a recess for doubt. A map says to you, 'Read me carefully, follow me closely, doubt me not.' It says, 'I am the earth in the palm of your hand. Without me, you are alone and lost. — Beryl Markham

A friend came to visit James Joyce one day and found the great man sprawled across his writing desk in a posture of utter despair.
James, what's wrong?' the friend asked. 'Is it the work?'
Joyce indicated assent without even raising his head to look at his friend. Of course it was the work; isn't it always?
How many words did you get today?' the friend pursued.
Joyce (still in despair, still sprawled facedown on his desk): 'Seven.'
Seven? But James ... that's good, at least for you.'
Yes,' Joyce said, finally looking up. 'I suppose it is ... but I don't know what order they go in! — Stephen King

I find it said, if only of Atys or Adonis, "There was a conception that the god sacrificed himself to himself." The man who can read those words without a thrill is dead. The — G.K. Chesterton

And, lastly (I may as well confess it, since my denial of it will be believed by nobody), perhaps I shall a good deal gratify my own vanity. Indeed, I scarce ever heard or saw the introductory words, "Without vanity I may say," etc., but some vain thing immediately followed. Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others that are within his sphere of action; and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for is vanity among the other comforts of life. — Benjamin Franklin

Of all the weapons of destruction that man could invent, the most terrible-and the most powerful-was the word. Daggers and spears left traces of blood; arrows could be seen at a distance. Poisons were detected in the end and avoided. But the word managed to destroy without leaving clues. — Paulo Coelho

What answer had your lecturer in Moscow to make to the question why he was forging notes? 'Everybody is getting rich one way or another, so I want to make haste to get rich too.' I don't remember the exact words, but the upshot was that he wants money for nothing, without waiting or working! We've grown used to having everything ready-made, to walking on crutches, to having our food chewed for us. Then the great hour struck, and every man showed himself in his true colours. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

For by giving it some hard thought, by considering the whole thing calmly, I could see that the trouble with the guillotine was that you had no chance at all, absolutely none. The fact was that it had been decided once and for all that the patient was to die. It was an open-and-shut case, a fixed arrangement, a tacit agreement that there was no question of going back on. If by some extraordinary chance the blade failed, they would just start over. So the thing that bothered me most was that the condemned man had to hope the machine would work the first time. And I say that's wrong. And in a way I was right. But in another way I was forced to admit that that was the whole secret of good organization. In other words, the condemned man was forced into a kind of moral collaboration. It was in his interest that everything go off without a hitch. — Albert Camus

While Frazier was a man of few words / Ali was a world of mouth / but he found his place in history / Now his heart can express him well / Joe Frazier was a silent warrior / whom Ali silently admired / One could not rise without the other — Muhammad Ali

The cramping influence of a hard formalist on a young child in repressing his spirits and courage, paralyzing the understanding, and that without producing indignation, but only fear and obedience, and even much sympathy with his tyranny, - is a familiar fact explained to the child when he becomes a man, only by seeing that the oppressor of his youth is himself a child tyrannized over by those names and words and forma, of whose influence he was merely the organ to the youth. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Memorizing Qur'an without studying it renders the text as a Talisman in the hands of its user; in Islam this is forbidden and is treated as a mark of Polytheism. Words convey contextual meanings to man, therefore, God's Word is only allowed to be treated as a Message; once touched by man, she/he is ordered to transport it into her/his mind and not only into her/his brain. That is why Symbols are a mediocre tool for conducting language because they paralyze the brain with their glyphs rather than excite the mind. — Ibrahim Ibrahim

I became, in other words, more like Holmes than the man himself: brilliant, driven to a point of obsession, careless of myself, mindless of others, but without the passion and the deep-down, inbred love for the good in humanity that was the basis of his entire career. He loved the humanity that could not understand or fully accept him; I, in the midst of the same human race, became a thinking machine. — Laurie R. King

I just wasn't able to say it before now.'
He blinked. 'You needed to knee a man in the groin before you could tell me you loved me?'
'No!' Then she thought about his words. 'Well, yes, in a way. I've always been so fearful that you would run my life. But I've learned that having you with me doesn't mean that I can't take care of myself as well.'
'You certainly made short work of Eversleigh.'
Her chin lifted a notch and she allowed herself a satisfied smile. 'Yes, I did, didn't I? And do you know, but I think I couldn't have done it without you.'
'Victoria, you did this all on your own. I wasn't even present.'
'Yes, you were.' She picked up his hand and placed it over her heart. — Julia Quinn