Dictionary Quotes

340 quotes by 289 authors

Ignorance is a treasure of infinite price that most men squander, when they should cherish its least fragments; some ruin it by educating themselves, others,… — Paul Valery
One dictionary that I consulted remarks that "natural history" now commonly means the study of animals and plants "in a popular and superficial way," meaning… — Marston Bates
What advice do you have for writers working on their first novels?If you feel called to write a book, consider it a gift. Look around… — Kathleen Grissom
You invented the words, and you gave me a dictionary and you said, 'These are what the words mean.' Well, this is what they mean… — Charles Manson
Some People think 'coven' is a word for a group of witches, and it's true that's what the dictionary says. But the real word for… — Terry Pratchett
On the analogy of 'Dictionary Johnson,' we call Fred R. Shapiro, editor of the just-published Yale Book of Quotations (well worth the $50 price), 'Quotationeer… — William Safire
The dictionary describes a selfish person as one who is 'concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself: seeking pleasure or well-being without regard for others.' May… — H. Burke Peterson
In Spain, attempting to obtain a chicken salad sandwich, you wind up with a dish whose name, when you look it up in your Spanish-English… — Dave Barry
I have just been refining the room in which I sit, yet I sometimes doubt that a writer should refine or improve his workroom by… — Elwyn Brooks White
In the dictionary of the seeker of truth there is no such thing as being "not successful." He is or should be an irrepressible optimist… — Mahatma Gandhi
We never say so much as when we do not quite know what we want to say. We need few words when we have something… — Eric Hoffer
Impossibility is a dictionary word. — Sri Chinmoy
Learning preserves the errors of the past, as well as its wisdom. For this reason, dictionaries are public dangers, although they are necessities. — Alfred North Whitehead
I wonder now what Ernest Hemingways dictionary looked like, since he got along so well with dinky words that anybody can spell and truly understand. — Kurt Vonnegut
Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words. — Samuel Johnson
We are living in a period in which many people have changed their mind about what the use of music is or could be for… — John Cage
My lad chewed and swallowed a dictionary. We gave him Epsom salts - but we can't get a word out of him. — Les Dawson
A word in a dictionary is very much like a car in a mammoth motor show - full of potential but temporarily inactive. — Anthony Burgess
Trickle-down theories do not address the legitimate aspirations of the poor. We must lift those at the bottom so that poverty is erased from the… — Pranab Mukherjee
I love learning about different dialects and I own all sorts of regional and time-period slang dictionaries. I often browse through relevant ones while writing… — Ron Rash

Who Wrote These Dictionary Quotes

289 authors contributed a total of 340 Dictionary Quotes, led by these top contributors: