Lewis Mumford Quotes

I believe words mean something. I really do.

Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn't change.

Words are important. They do matter.

Words are not pebbles in alien juxtaposition.

Language is not only the vehicle of thought, it is a great and efficient instrument in thinking.

Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.

Metaphor matters because it creates expectations.

Without a possibility of change in meanings human communication could not perform its present functions.

Words are the small change of thought.

Thus, we see that one of the obvious origins of human disagreement lies in the use of noises for words.

Words, which are the dress of thoughts, deserve surely more care than clothes, which are only the dress of the person.

Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.

Words are not trivial. They matter because they raise consciousness.

Language is very important to me.

Language is powerful. Words matter.

Words exist because of meaning; once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words.

A word is no light matter. Words have with truth been called fossil poetry, each, that is, a symbol of a creative thought.

Words... They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good any more... I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you're dead.

We have only the language for fun and miserable, and maybe we need language for deep and shallow, meaningful and meaningless.

There are words and words and none mean anything. And then one sentence means everything.

I'm very interested in language because it reflects our obsessions and ways of conceptualising the world.

My use of language is part and parcel of my message.

Language cares.

All our work, our whole life is a matter of semantics, because words are the tools with which we work, the material out of which laws are made, out of which the Constitution was written. Everything depends on our understanding of them.

Symbols are the imaginative signposts of life.