All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.

––Kahlil Gibran

I like good strong words that mean something.

 ––Louisa May Alcott

Do not compute the totality of your poultry population until all the manifestations of incubation have been entirely completed.

 ––William Jennings Bryan

One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can’t utter.

––James Earl Jones

The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place, but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

––Dorothy Nevill

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.

––Anonymous

You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. Yet in their hearts there is unspoken –– unspeakable! –– fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts! Words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home, all the more powerful because they are forbidden. These terrify them. A little mouse –– a little tiny mouse –– of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentate are thrown into panic.

––Winston Churchill

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

––J. Danforth Quayle

English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment, and education –– sometimes it’s sheer luck, like getting across the street.

––E.B. White

The quality of out thoughts is bordered on all sides by our facility with language.

––J. Michael Straczynski

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.

––Toni Morrison

Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.

––Ralph Waldo Emerson

Be careful when speaking. You create the world around you with your words.

––Navajo saying

(Each week this column features quotations gleaned from the readings and experiences of our editors, reporters, readers, and friends. All are invited to submit quotations for inclusion here. They may be sent to Gleanings, c/o The Newtown Bee, 5 Church Hill Road, Newtown, CT 06470 or emailed to editor@thebee.com.)