Vocabulary Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old vocabulary quotes, vocabulary sayings, and vocabulary proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

The limits of my language are the limits of my universe. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Your inability to see other possibilities and your lack of vocabulary are your brain's limits, not the universe's. Scott Adams
You can't build up a vocabulary if you never meet any new words. And to meet them you must read. The more you read the better.  Rudolf Flesch
Your understanding of what you read and hear is, to a very large degree, determined by your vocabulary, so improve your vocabulary daily. Winston Churchill
Human vocabulary is still not capable, and probably never will be, of knowing, recognizing, and communicating everything that can be humanly experienced and felt. Jose Saramago
Loving your language means a command of its vocabulary beyond the level of the everyday. John McWhorter
As vocabulary is reduced , so are the number of feelings you can express, the number of events you can describe, the number of the things you can identify! Not only understanding is limited, but also experience. Man grows by language. Whenever he limits language he retrogresses! Sheri S. Tepper
Simply by changing your habitual vocabulary, you can instantaneously change how you think, how you feel, and how you live. Tony Robbins
Short words are best, and old words when short are best of all. Winston Churchill
Vocabulary enables us to interpret and to express. If you have a limited vocabulary, you will also have a limited vision and a limited future. Jim Rohn
Vocabulary for aggravation is large. Vocabulary for transcendence is elusive. Jennifer Senior
The vocabulary and manner of classical ballet express a high order of discipline and restraint, a sense of harmony with forces larger and more lasting than the individual. Marsha B. Siegel
We use the vocabulary of light to describe a spiritual experience. James Turrell
As the language or vocabulary of photography has been extended, the emphasis of meaning has shifted, shifted from what the world looks like to what we feel about the world and what we want the world to mean. Aaron Siskind
Vocabulary is a matter of word-building as well as word-using.  David Crystal
Vocabularies are crossing circles and loops. We are defined by the lines we choose to cross or to be confined by. A. S. Byatt
Syntax and vocabulary are overwhelming constraints --the rules that run us. Language is using us to talk --we think we're using the language, but language is doing the thinking, we're its slavish agents. Harry Mathews
One forgets words as one forgets names. One's vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die. Evelyn Waugh
The personal vocabulary, the individual melody whose metre is one's biography, joins in that sound, with any luck, and the body moves like a walking, a waking island. Derek Walcott
Success and vocabulary go hand in hand. This has been proven so often that it no longer admits of argument. Wilfred Funk
The more words you know, the more clearly and powerfully you will think ... and the more ideas you will invite into your mind. Wilfred Funk
The vocabulary of pleasure depends on the imagery of pain. Marina Warner
Words play an enormous part in our lives and are therefore deserving of the closest study. Aldous Huxley
A word out of place or an interesting choice of vocabulary can spawn a whole character. Sara Sheridan
Practice the vocabulary of love - unlearn the language of hate and contempt. Sai Baba
The words that come direct from the people are the greatest.If you substitute one out of your own vocabulary, it disappears before your eyes. Dorothea Lange
The vocabulary of an omniscient man would embrace words and images excluded from polite conversation. What would be base, or even obscene, to the obscene, becomes illustrious, spoken in a new connexion of thought. Ralph Waldo Emerson
A vocabulary of truth and simplicity will be of service throughout your life. T.S. Eliot
We are losing our common vocabulary, built over thousands of years to help and delight and instruct us, for the sake of what we take to be the new technology's virtues. Alberto Manguel
A limited vocabulary, but one with which you can make numerous combinations, is better than thirty thousand words that only hamper the action of the mind. Paul Valery