John Ruskin Quotes

Whatever one wishes to say, there is one noun only by which to express it, one verb only to give it life, one adjective only which will describe it. One must search until one has discovered them, this noun, this verb, this adjective, and never rest content with approximations, never resort to trickery, however happy, or to vulgarism, in order to dodge the difficulty.

Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.

What a pity it is that there are so many words! Whenever one wants to say anything, three or four ways of saying it run into one's head together and one can't tell which to choose. It is as troublesome and puzzling as choosing a ribbon ... or a husband.

According to my wife, my use of vocabulary is wide and varied.

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of.

We printed all the words out because otherwise nobody would be able to understand them.

I was born into a profession in which my love of words, chosen with care for their meaning and nuance, was extremely important, not only to me, but also to the people with whom I worked with.

People say jargon is a bad thing, but it's really a shortcut vocabulary professionals use to understand one another.

I love the right words. I think economy and precision of language are important.

Words matter. Especially ones with four letters.

One word is worth a thousand pictures. If it's the right word.

How do you say 'bring me sausage and eggs or I'll slit your throat' in Italian?" "Look it up in the phrase book.

I talk a lot in metaphors. I get my words out but sometimes they don't make sense.

And I'm convinced that knowing the names of things braces people up.

Vocabularies are crossing circles and loops. We are defined by the lines we choose to cross or to be confined by.

I never knew what was meant by choice of words. It was one word or none.

The key to all knowledge comes in words of just one syllable, apparently.... There's only the last page left to write on. I'll fill it with words of just one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love.

Let me try once more," Milo said in an effort to explain. "In other words--" "You mean you have other words?" cried the bird happily. "Well, by all means, use them. You're certainly not doing very well with the ones you have now.

So what's the point of using words nobody else knows or can say comfortably? I just don't understand that.

That's crazy, because I had no idea what the word 'contraction' meant before I saw it on the Internet.

The language denotes the man. A coarse or refined character finds its expression naturally in a coarse or refined phraseology.

Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.

Hey," he said. "It's someday." He said the last word in Greek.

She had always wanted words, she loved them; grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.

I believe that should is one of the most damaging words in our language. Every time we use it, we are, in effect, saying that we are wrong, or we were wrong, or we're going to be wrong. I would like to take the word should out of our vocabulary forever and replace it with the word could. This word gives us a choice, and we're never wrong.