Edwin Percy Whipple Quotes

A word devoid of thought is a dead thing, and a thought unembodied in words remains a shadow.

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

Many can argue that it is our power of intelligence that is the key to the human domination of our planet. I suggest that it is the ability to put our thoughts into words that can be communicated to others.

There are words which are worth as much as the best actions, for they contain the germ of them all.

I do feel like I'm in this lucky position where I can write something and people will read it, and I feel like I should say something that's probably worth saying... I feel like it's something worth saying, and one more person saying it is better.

Words are not thoughts, just like bricks are not homes. But houses are made with bricks. If you have less bricks, you will make a small house. The more words you have, the clearer your thoughts, and the more clearly you can convey them.

Among a man's many good possessions, A good command of speech has no equal. Prosperity and ruin issue from the power of the tongue. Therefore, guard yourself against thoughtless speech.

Words should be only the clothes, carefully custom-made to fit the thought.

Words are both better and worse than thoughts, they express them, and add to them; they give them power for good or evil; they start them on an endless flight, for instruction and comfort and blessing, or for injury and sorrow and ruin.

There is no eloquence without a man behind it.

Everyone knows how to talk, and no one knows what to say.

The only difference between the failure of a great idea and the success of a medocre idea was the way in which the idea was communicated.

Prose talent depends on having something to say and an interesting, highly developed way of saying it.

Eloquence is the appropriate organ of the highest personal energy.

Without big words, how could many people say small things?

Sometimes it takes you awhile to get to it, but you always get there, and what you say is always worth waiting for.

If you can talk brilliantly about a problem

Good thoughts not delivered mean squat.

Words have power. Use the language of leadership versus the vocabulary of a victim.

To talk well and eloquently is a very great art, but that an equally great one is to know the right moment to stop.

The art of writing is not, as many seem to imagine, the art of bringing fine phrases into rhythmical order, but the art of placing before the reader intelligible symbols of the thoughts and feelings in the writer's mind.

I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth.

But words are more powerful than anything.

Study words so that you can use them significantly, effectively, worthily.

Even when I was wrong, I got my point across.