Meaning of Words Quotes

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'

Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.

The Constitution is a 200-year-old parchment, simply because we digitize the words should not suggest their meanings change.

Evie picked up the smallest of the rings and tried it on the fourth finger of her left hand. It fit perfectly. Raising it closer to her face, she examined the design. It was the simplest of all the rings, a polished gold band engraved with the words Tha Gad Agam Ort. “What does this mean?” she asked MacPhee. “It says, ‘My love is upon ye.

[W]ords are fine, but it has to be what a generation reads into those words.

We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

I believe that fallen creatures perish, perish for ever, for only good can live, and good has not been theirs; but how durst men forge our Saviour's words "eternal death " into so horrible a meaning? And even if he did use other words, and seem to countenance such a meaning for them (and what witness have we that He did, except that of men whose ignorance or prejudice might well have interpreted these words wrongly as they did so many others?

Surely it is time to examine into the meaning of words and the nature of things, and to arrive at simple facts, not received upon the dictum of learned authorities, but upon attentive personal observation of what is passing around us.

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.

People often complain that music is too ambiguous, that what they should think when they hear it is so unclear, whereas everyone understands words. With me, it is exactly the opposite, and not only with regard to an entire speech but also with individual words.