Polysyllabic Quotes & Sayings

Just as there are polysyllabic words that say very little, so there are also monosyllabic words of infinite meaning. — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

He was abusing Big Brother, he was denouncing the dictatorship of the Party, he was demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he was advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, he was crying hysterically that the revolution had been betrayed - and all this in rapid polysyllabic speech which was a sort of parody of the habitual style of the orators of the Party, and even contained Newspeak words: more Newspeak words, indeed, than any Party member would normally use in real life. — George Orwell

Our language, once homely and colloquial, seeks to aggrandize our meanest activities with polysyllabic terms or it retreats from frankness into a stammering verbosity. — Mary McCarthy

was starting to raise my hand in a thumbs-down gesture, so he said, "Okay, okay! If we don't drink blood, we look really pale. Regardless of our ethnicity or geographic location or exposure to the sun. And we feel cold to the touch." He paused and looked down at me in exasperation. "I am seriously trying here. Every instinct I have is telling me to use polysyllabic words to impress you. — Temple West

Curiously, Laura Warholic is one of those novels in which the characters actually read books.You don't often see this in contemporary fiction. People resent polysyllabic words, find it showing off, never look them up, refuse to play. Words are to a writer what paint is to an artist. I am amazed at how readers refuse to enjoy the out-of-the-way fact, the astonishing detail, the original thought. Style is taken as an affront by stupid and lazy people. Just say it, they say. Sure! Should I die or should I live basically sums up Hamlet's "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy. Why didn't he just say so!? — Alexander Theroux

A book did not qualify as literature unless it had polysyllabic words and incomprehensible passages. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Which meant I spent my spare time learning theory, studying dead languages and reading books like Essays on The Metaphysical by John "never saw a polysyllabic word he didn't like" Cartwright. — Ben Aaronovitch

What fascinated me about English was what I later recognized as its hybrid etymoogy: blunt Anglo-Saxon concreteness, sleek Norman French urbanity, and polysyllabic Greco-Roman abstraction. The clash of these elements, as competitive as Italian dialects is invigorating, richly entertaining, and often funny, as it is to Shaskespeare, who gets tremendous effects out of their interplay. The dazzling multiplicity of sounds and word choices in English makes it brilliantly suited to be a language of poetry.. — Camille Paglia