Kenneth L. Pike Quotes

Words are how people think. When you misuse words, you diminish your ability to think clearly and truthfully.

People like to say, 'What do you mean exactly?' I would answer, 'I mean, but not exactly.'

It's technically extremely difficult to get down what you really mean, not what you think you mean, or what you think sounds good, but what's really there, what you really have to express, in words that somehow convey that meaning in an approximate way.

Something's that written out is okay, but it's not always a clear indication of what a person means.

There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words.

One of the hardest things in the world is to convey a meaning accurately from one mind to another.

In a world of more brilliance words don't mean anything.

Words are like eyeglasses they blur everything that they do not make clear.

Paper and ink are all but trash, if I cannot find the thought which the writer did think.

It's important to be precise about words, because of the thought value of them-they frame and shape so much of the way we understand things.

Symbols are the imaginative signposts of life.

Words are not pebbles in alien juxtaposition.

The trouble with words is that you never know whose mouths they have been in.

How or by what magic is it, that we convey our thoughts to one another with such case and accuracy?

There is a profound difference between information and meaning.

Metaphor matters because it creates expectations.

I love language, and I love the failure of language.

I think it's important for people to always understand what is the context is in what is being said, because that obviously determines what folks are talking about.

I have never had a problem with people not being able to understand the words and the meanings in Titus.

It’s not what you say; it’s what people hear.

Words are only as good as the response to those words.

My mother introduced to me as a child the world of language: the way in which translation can be a system by which you can understand others.

I know words sometimes have consequences, but I try to choose the correct words every time.

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

And those moments that I find mind busting. Meaning like there's a word that I find in a weird place. I love the process of going to the writer and working that out, because that's just basic communication.