Words, so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become, in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

More information about this quote

Topic

Power of words Power of literature Literature Writing

Author

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Source

Journals of Nathaniel Hawthorne

Medium

Personal journal

Language

English

Time

1848 1840s 19th century

Occupation

Novelist Writer

From

United States

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Journal entry. 18 May 1848.

Illustrated Quote

A quote by Nathaniel Hawthorne about power of words: “Words, so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in…”
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A quote by Nathaniel Hawthorne about power of words: “Words, so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in…”
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A quote by Nathaniel Hawthorne about power of words: “Words, so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in…”
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Related Quotes

Below are one or more quotes that share at least one tag with the quote at the top of the page

Another quote from the 1840s

If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!

Soren Kierkegaard

Either Or

Buy Either/Or: A Fragment of Life at Amazon Buy Either/Or: A Fragment of Life at Amazon
More information about this quote
Topic
Possibility Anticipation Imagination

Author

Soren Kierkegaard
Source
Either Or
Language
Danish
Time
1843 1840s 19th century
Authentication Score 3
Original Citation

Kierkegaard, Soren [published as Victor Eremita]. Enten-Eller [Either/Or]. Vol. 1, Copenhagen: University bookshop, 1843.

Current Citation

Kierkegaard, Soren. Either/Or: A Fragment of Life, translated by Alistair Hanny. Penguin Classics, 1992, pt. 1.

Another quote about Power of literature

Hamlet is a name: His speeches and sayings but the idle coinage of the poet's brain. What then, are they not real? They are as real as our own thoughts. Their reality is in the reader's mind. It is we who are Hamlet.

William Hazlitt

More information about this quote
Topic
Power of literature

Author

William Hazlitt
Language
English
Time
1817 1810s 19th century
Authentication Score 3
Citation

Hazlitt, William. "Hamlet." Characters of Shakespear's Plays. London: Rowland Hunter and Charles Ollier and James Ollier, 1817.