Hard Words Quotes:

All letters, methinks, should be free and easy as one's discourse, not studied, as an oration, nor made up of hard words like a charm ...

- Dorothy Osborne

source: Letter to Sir William Temple, October 1653

topic: Letters, Easy, Charm, Hard Words

Hard words indeed break no bones, but many a heart has been broken by them.

- Matthew Henry

topic: Heart, Broken, Bones, Hard Words

For what is Mysticism? It is not the attempt to draw near to God, not by rites or ceremonies, but by inward disposition? Is it not merely a hard word for 'The Kingdom of Heaven is within'? Heaven is neither a place nor a time.

- Florence Nightingale

source: Florence Nightingale, Michael D. Calabria, Janet A. Macrae (1994). “Suggestions for Thought by Florence Nightingale: Selections and Commentaries”, p.13, University of Pennsylvania Press

topic: Diversity, Heaven, Inward, Hard Words

A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

topic: Children, Heart, Parenting, Happy Children, You Hurt Me

Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers, than the use of hard words.

- Samuel Johnson

source: James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1799). “Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales”, p.253

topic: Real, Vocabulary, Class, Hard Words

I don't think anything could prepare you for whatever fame is. Fame is a very hard word to define cause it means different things to different people for different reasons so I never really think of it as fame, I think of it as part of the job.

- Matt Smith

source: "Interview: Matt Smith Says “Doctor Who” Fans Are What Make the Show Brilliant". Interview with Michael Jensen, www.newnownext.com. August 1, 2011.

topic: Jobs, Mean, Thinking, Hard Words

I soothe my conscience now with the thought that it is better for hard words to be on paper than that Mummy should carry them in her heart.

- Anne Frank

source: Anne Frank (1989). “The diary of a young girl”, Pocket

topic: Kindness, Heart, Motherhood, Mummy, Hard Words

The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word "damn" than in the word "degeneration."

- Gilbert K. Chesterton

source: Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.93, Simon and Schuster

topic: Long, Metaphysical, Damn, Long Words, Degeneration

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

- Wayne Gretzky

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Fitness, Thought Of The Day, Self Determination

Let us consider how great a commodity of doctrine exists in books; how easily, how secretly, how safely they expose the nakedness of human ignorance without putting it to shame. These are the masters who instruct us without rods and ferules, without hard words and anger, without clothes or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; if investigating you interrogate them, they conceal nothing; if you mistake them, they never grumble; if you are ignorant, they cannot laugh at you.

- Richard de Bury

source: Richard de Bury (2013). “Philobiblon: A Treatise on the Love of Books”, p.11, Cambridge University Press

topic: Mistake, Book, Ignorance, Hard Words

I owe my sucess in one per cent to my talent, in ten per cent to luck, and in ninety per cent to hard word. Work, work, and more work is the secret to success.

- Ignacy Jan Paderewski

topic: Luck, Secret, Sucess, Secret To Success, Hard Words

He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.

- Samuel Johnson

source: Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.261, Univ of California Press

topic: Book, Reading, Complaining, Deficiency, Hard Words

Be not frightened at the hard words "imposition," "imposture;" give and ask no questions. Cast thy bread upon the waters. Some have, unawares, entertained angels.

- Charles Lamb

topic: Angel, Giving, Water, Imposition, Hard Words

Women are like dogs really. They love like dogs, a little insistently. And they like to fetch and carry and come back wistfully after hard words, and learn rather easily to carry a basket.

- Mary Roberts Rinehart

topic: Dog, Women, Littles, Hard Words

Conclusion 1: Boredom= Flared tempers= hard words

- Bisco Hatori

topic: Boredom, Temper, Conclusion, Hard Words

A man of fashion never has recourse to proverbs, and vulgar aphorisms; uses neither favourite words nor hard words, but takes great care to speak very correctly and grammatically, and to pronounce properly; that is, according to the usage of the best companies.

- Lord Chesterfield

source: Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.163, Oxford University Press

topic: Fashion, Men, Use, Recourse, Best Company

...a man of true science uses few hard words, and those only when none other will answer his purpose; Where as the smatterer in science...thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.

- Herman Melville

topic: Men, Thinking, Purpose, Hard Words

Grown-ups desperately need to feel safe, and then they project onto the kids. But what none of us seem to realize is how smart kids are. They don’t like what we write for them, what we dish up for them, because it’s vapid, so they’ll go for the hard words, they’ll go for the hard concepts, they’ll go for the stuff where they can learn something. Not didactic things, but passionate things.

- Maurice Sendak

source: "Maurice Sendak Sheds Moonlight on a Dark Tale". www.nytimes.com. 1993.

topic: Smart, Writing, Kids, Didactic, Vapid

Hard words are for fools and cowards.

- Joe Abercrombie

topic: Coward, Fool, Hard Words

A hard word follows us and later falls upon him who pronounced it, like a ray of vengeance.

- Samael Aun Weor

topic: Fall, Rays, Vengeance, Hard Words

Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth.... Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words and they backhand them across the net.

- E. B. White

topic: Children, Writing, Games, Hard Words

Hard words are very rarely useful. Real firmness is good for every thing. Strut is good for nothing.

- Alexander Hamilton

topic: Real, Firmness, Hard Words

Normal is such a hard word to use, because everyone's idea of normal is different. Real is what the word is. I think you either live a real life or you live a weird celebrity pseudolife. I think I lead a really real life.

- Sarah Michelle Gellar

source: Source: www.cosmopolitan.com

topic: Real, Thinking, Ideas, Hard Words

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

topic: Silly, Science, Political, Misunderstood Genius, Statesmen

A man of true science... thinks, that by mouthing hard words, he proves that he understands hard things.

- Herman Melville

source: "White-Jacket" by Herman Melville, (Ch. 64), 1850.

topic: Communication, Men, Thinking, Hard Words

Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1279, Delphi Classics

topic: Thinking, Today, Tomorrow, Hard Words

Yes, my mind was wandering. I wished I were there with someone who could bring peace to my heart someone with whom I could spend a little time without being afraid that i would lose him the next day. With that reassurance, the time would pass more slowly. We could be silent for a while because we'd know we had the rest of our lives together for conversation. I wouldn't have to worry about serious matters, about difficult decisions and hard words.

- Paulo Coelho

topic: Heart, Next Day, Worry, Little Time, Difficult Decisions

Consider carefully before you say a hard word to a man, but never let a chance to say a good one go by. Praise judiciously bestowed is money invested.

- George Horace Lorimer

source: George Horace Lorimer (2016). “Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to his Son”, p.77, Lulu.com

topic: Men, Chance, Praise, Hard Words

I want to let her know though that all the nights sleeping beside her even the useless arguments were things ever splendid and the hard words I ever feared to say can now be said: I love you.

- Charles Bukowski

topic: Love You, Sleep, Night, Hard Words