Frank Hague, U.S. politician in a 1938 speech We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. You never heard a real American talk in that manner. In fact, words are well adapted for description and the arousing of emotion, but for many kinds of precise thought other symbols are much better. There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers.
Words are chameleons, which reflect the colour of their environment.
Thomas Hardy Purism, whether in grammar or in vocabulary, almost always means ignorance. Language was made before grammar, not grammar before language. If you can't get a job as a pianist in a brothel you become a royal reporter. There can be no doubt that distrust of words is less harmful than unwarranted trust in them. I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.