Short Words Quotes:

Each life is one short word slowly uttered.

- Louise Erdrich

topic: Life, Life Is, Short Words

The short words are best, and the old words, when short, are the best of all.

- Winston Churchill

source: "The Proverbial Winston S. Churchill: An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Sir Winston Churchill".

topic: Short Words, Shortness

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

- Vincent Van Gogh

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Positive, Inner Voice, Improve Self Esteem

When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

- Harriet Beecher Stowe

source: "Old Town Folks". Book by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Chapter 39, p. 507, 1869.

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Strength, Inspirational Cancer, Do Not Give Up

Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

- Harriet Beecher Stowe

source: Harriet Beecher Stowe (1896). “Oldtown folks. Sam Lawson's Oldtown fireside stories”

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Encouraging, Give Me Strength, Self Determination

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

- Eleanor Roosevelt

source: Quoted in Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 7 June 1941 See Channing 1

topic: Inspirational, Happiness, Leadership, Empowering Women, Improve Self Esteem

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

- Henry David Thoreau

source: "Walden". Book by Henry David Thoreau, 1854.

topic: Love, Inspirational, Life, Live For Yourself, Man Of My Dreams

He should have known better because, early in his learnings under his brother Mahmoud, he had discovered that long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings, but short words were slippery, unpredictable changing their meanings without any pattern. Or so he seemed to grok. Short human words were never like a short Martian word - such as grok which forever meant exactly the same thing. Short human words were like trying to lift water with a knife. And this had been a very short word.

- Robert A. Heinlein

topic: Brother, Knives, Water, Short Words, Should Have Known

I owe a quenchless debt to him who bade me seize my fate And hang it on the faith that I to it was adequate For when he said -you're on your own- and sauntered on away I knew that here, in four short words, was youth-s first judgment day Not wit to learn, not test of skill, not pride to satisfy, But will to walk down life in faith that life is theirs who try.

- Gill Robb Wilson

topic: Fate, Pride, Skills, Judgment Day, Short Words

... I think that I was too self-centered to ever develop good skills as a peacemaker. In my younger days, I assumed that it was because I was smarter than everyone else, with no patience for explaining things in short words for mouthbreathers who just didn't get it.

- Cory Doctorow

source: Cory Doctorow (2015). “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom”, p.75, Booklassic

topic: Thinking, Self, Skills, Explaining Things, Peacemaker

I'll tell thee what it says; it calls me villain, a treacherous husband, a cruel father, a false brother; one lost to nature and her charities; or to say all in one short word, it calls me - Gamester.

- George Edward Moore

source: "The Gamester", Act II, scene 1, as quoted Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations, p. 306-07, 1922.

topic: Brother, Husband, Father, Treacherous, Short Words

Fortunately, I knew the cardinal rule of getting on with one's fellow cooks. It applies in any kitchen and can be summed up in two short words: bust ass.

- Jacques Pepin

source: Jacques Pepin (2004). “The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen”, p.154, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

topic: Two, Kitchen, Ass, Cardinal Rules, Short Words

There are some simple maxims which I think might be commended to writers of expository prose. First: never use a long word if a short word will do. So, if you want to make a statement with a great many qualifications, put some of the qualifications in separate sentences. Third: do not let the beginning of your sentence lead the reader to an expectation which is contradicted by the end.

- Bertrand Russell

source: Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.37, Routledge

topic: Simple, Thinking, Long, Long Words, Short Words

"On my honor" - what an ennobling phrase! Three short words, nine letters, but the summation of all we call character. From the Boy Scout's Oath.

- Ezra Taft Benson

topic: Character, Boys, Honor, Boy Scout, Short Words

To love very much is to love inadequately; we love-that is all. Love cannot be modified without being nullified. Love is a short word but it contains everything. Love means the body, the soul, the life, the entire being. We feel love as we feel the warmth of our blood, we breathe love as we breathe the air, we hold it in ourselves as we hold our thoughts. Nothing more exists for us. Love is not a word; it is a wordless state indicated by four letters.

- Guy de Maupassant

topic: Love, Mean, Air, Short Words

Depending on the inflection, ah bon can express shock, disbelief, indifference, irritation, or joy - a remarkable achievment for two short words.

- Peter Mayle

source: FaceBook post by Peter Mayle from Jun 30, 2013

topic: Two, Irritation, Joy, Short Words

Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.

- Henry Watson Fowler

source: Henry Watson Fowler, Francis George Fowler (1931). “The King's English”, Oxford University Press

topic: Long, Romance, Abstract, Short Words

The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components,

- William Zinsser

topic: Writing, Secret, Good Writing, Long Words, Writing Well

I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English―it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them―then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.

- Mark Twain

topic: Flower, Mean, Writing, Fluff, Writing Advice

If, as I suspect, my body survives by uttering itself over and over again, then I have some questions. If [I] am one word, so are my daughters, so are all of us in strings and loops. Each life is one short word slowly uttered.

- Louise Erdrich

topic: Daughter, Body, Life Is, Short Words

To knot a sentence up properly, it has to be thought out carefully, and revised. New phrases have to be put in; sudden changes of subject must be introducted; verbs must be shifted to unsuspected localities; short words must be excised with ruthless hand; archaisms must be sprinkled like sugar-plums upon the concoction; the fatal human tendency to say things straightforwardly must be detected and defeated by adroit reversals; and, if a glimmer of meaning yet remain under close scrutiny, it must be removed by replacing all the principal verbs by paraphrases in some dead language.

- Aleister Crowley

topic: Hands, Plums, Verbs, Paraphrase, Sudden Change

So Mo began filling the silence with words. He lured them out of the pages as if they had only been waiting for his voice, words long and short, words sharp and soft, cooing, purring words. They danced through the room, painting stained glass pictures, tickling the skin. Even when Meggie nodded off she could still hear them, although Mo had closed the book long ago. Words that explained the world to her, its dark side and its light side, words that built a wall to keep out bad dreams. And not a single bad dream came over that wall for the rest of the night.

- Cornelia Funke

topic: Dream, Wall, Book, Tickling, Stained Glass

What are letters?” “Kinda like mediaglyphics except they’re all black, and they’re tiny, they don’t move, they’re old and boring and really hard to read. But you can use ’em to make short words for long words.

- Neal Stephenson

source: Neal Stephenson (2003). “The Diamond Age”, p.46, Spectra

topic: Moving, Long, Black, All Black, Long Words

Cure" is one of the most precious words in the English language. It's a short word. A clean and simple word. But it isn't so easy a thing as it sounds. There are questions like: How will this affect us in ten years? In twenty? What will it do to our children? Our children's children?

- Lauren DeStefano

topic: Children, Simple, Years, Short Words

Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge. Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words when short are best of all.

- Winston Churchill

topic: Writing, Simplicity, Language, Short Words

Charity may be a very short word, but with its tremendous meaning of pure love, it sums up man's entire relation to God and to his neighbor.

- Aelred of Rievaulx

topic: Faith, Inspiration, Men, Short Words

[Erwin Rommel] explained why in short words, what the two generals' message and then he explained his position and he gave some reason for his position. And then he said, "The ten minutes are over, and I have to leave now." Then my father said goodbye. He also told that us that in I think twenty or thirty minutes, I don't remember, "You will get a telephone call telling you that I have died of stroke."

- Manfred Rommel

topic: Goodbye, Father, Thinking, Rommel, Short Words

Even short words of encouragement is enough to enlighten one's darkened minds and make things a little bit easier to handle. You might be searching for short motivational quotes, that's why I'm here to give you a set of the best short inspiring quotes. Try not to become a man of success but a man of value.

- Albert Einstein

topic: Encouragement, Giving, Best Short, Short 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