"Choice of words" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... performed his task. In the prose there is naturally less inequality, and here, where excellence is quite as important as in the verse, the translator's work is irreproachable. His vigilant taste seems never to have failed him in the choice of words which should keep at once all the dignity and all the quaintness of the original, while they faithfully ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... within their reach. The later one begins his reading, the more difficult it is for him to master the art. He has not the simplest standards of literary judgment nor even the ideas from which such standards are to be formed. Elegance of style and skill in the choice of words are entirely lost upon him, as is the delicate meaning involved in the play of appropriate figures and in the brilliance of the pictures limned in colors to which his eye is blind. Such a person can come to enjoy the pleasures of literature, but it is by way of a long and careful ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... building—a large luminous room, without furniture, beautifully matted. And we sit down upon the floor and chat. He tells me he is a student in the temple. He learned English in Tokyo and speaks it with a curious accent, but with fine choice of words. Finally he ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... no monopoly of literary merit. There is a sense in which Addison is superior to Carlyle; a sense in which Cicero is better than Tacitus, in which Voltaire excels Montaigne: it certainly lies not in the choice of words; it lies not in the interest or value of the matter; it lies not in force of intellect, of poetry, or of humour. The three first are but infants to the three second; and yet each, in a particular point of literary art, excels his superior in the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is the only inconvenience with which Rhyme can be charged. This is that, which makes them say, "Rhyme is not natural. It being only so, when the Poet either makes a vicious choice of words; or places them, for Rhyme's sake so unnaturally, as no man would, in ordinary speaking." But when 'tis so judiciously ordered, that the first word in the verse seems to beget the second; and that, the next; till that becomes the last word in the line, which, in the negligence of Prose, would ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... Practically these five are the only characters. Of them it is, of course, Barbara herself who stands out most prominently, a figure of an austere yet wistful dignity, of whom any novelist might be proud. I should hazard a guess that Miss JENKINSON writes slowly; one feels this in her choice of words and her avoidance (even in the final tragic catastrophe) of anything approaching sensationalism or melodrama. When all, is said, however, it is for its descriptions that I shall remember the book. The hot summer, with the flocks calling in the night for water; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... next stop I got into a row with a one-eyed professor of elocution, because he said I carried too much for the size of my mule, an' didn't speak proper. He objected to my pronunciation, and I to his choice of words. In the argument his revolver took sides with him. I got one of my toes lopped with a bullet, and the lady who carried the cigar and the bottle took me to her home and nursed me like a mother, and the lady with the wooden leg brought me strawberries every day and sang to ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... on Dr. Gaisford in Wimpole Street before going to his office. His brain felt numbed, and he had to speak with artful choice of words to prevent being tripped up by a stammer. The doctor looked once at his drawn face and pink eye-lids, then pushed a chair opposite his own and ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... however, to suggest that the main labour of an author consists in rewriting. The choice of words may have been made before a single one of them has been written down, as tradition tells us was the case with Menander, who described one of his plays as "finished" before he had written a word of it. It would be foolish, too, to write as ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... on sheets of note-paper, and tied in little fascicules, each of six or eight sheets. While many of them bear evidence of having been thrown off at white heat, still more had received thoughtful revision. There is the frequent addition of rather perplexing foot-notes, affording large choice of words and phrases. And in the copies which she sent to friends, sometimes one form, sometimes another, is found to have been used. Without important exception, her friends have generously placed at the disposal of the Editors any poems they had received from ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... "it is no time, this, for the choice of words. There is a man who lies very near to death up there in the Cafe des Deux Epingles, and it must be decided within the next few hours what is to be ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... charm and vitality and the authenticity of first-hand knowledge and lively sympathy. The War, as we have just been reminded by an impressive memorial service, has made deep gaps in the ranks of English journalists, and the loss of JOHN F. MACDONALD'S quick eyes, happy choice of words, and intensely human apprehensions was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... only poets, and men of leisure and cultivation, who live with her? No; but also hunters, farmers, grooms, and butchers, though they express their affection in their choice of life and not in their choice of words. The writer wonders what the coachman or the hunter values in riding, in horses and dogs. It is not superficial qualities. When you talk with him he holds these at as slight a rate as you. His worship is sympathetic; ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the change in him. His sudden composure, and his sudden nicety in the choice of words, tried her courage far more severely than it had been tried by his violence of ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... . . It might not mean anything. It could be just an unfortunate choice of words. But suppose that the real mission of Project "Saucer" was to cover up something. Or that its purpose was to investigate something serious, at the same time covering it up, step by step. The Project ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... eloquence in the tone of voice, in the eyes, and in the air of a speaker, as in his choice of words. ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... years before he had felt his father's hand and had thought: "How old he's getting! ... How I shall miss him! ... I hope nothing happens to him!" In the very balance of his father's sentences and the deliberate choice of words there had been something old-fashioned and remote from all the life and scramble of Martin's recent years. Now he took his father's hand in his own strong grasp and ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... fore end of the poop, where he could be seen and heard by everybody. I am bound to admit that, as a speaker, the ex-schoolmaster acquitted himself fairly well. His grammar was unexceptionable, as might be reasonably expected; his choice of words admirable, and his mode of expressing himself easy, yet precise; while he seemed to have the gift of arranging the points of his subject symmetrically, and in such a manner as instantly to catch and hold the attention of his hearers. ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... different article, but vastly entertaining, and has been meat and drink to me for many a long evening. His manner is dry, brisk, and pertinacious, and the choice of words not much. The point about him is his extraordinary readiness and spirit. You can propound nothing but he has either a theory about it ready made or will have one instantly on the stocks, and proceed to lay its timbers and launch it on the minute. 'Let me see,' he will say, 'give me a ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... abound in examples of that exquisite precision in the choice of words, which never seems to be precise, but has all the aspect of absolute freedom. Through his language his thought bursts upon the mind as a landscape is seen instantly, perfectly, and beautifully from a mountain height. A little vagueness of thought, a slight infelicity in the choice ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... contended for the eloquence of his own time. Were I to mention the quality that placed him at the head of his rivals I should say it was the solidity of his judgement. It was he that first shewed a taste for polished and graceful oratory. He was happy in his choice of words, and he had the art of giving weight and harmony to his composition. We find in many passages a warm imagination, and luminous sentences. In his later speeches, he has lively sallies of wit and fancy. Experience had then matured his judgement, and after long practice, he found the true oratorical ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... concentrated upon the book he grew warmer. Having always had Hermione's eager, even enthusiastic sympathy and encouragement in his work, he believed himself to have them now. And in his manner, in his tone, even sometimes in his choice of words, he plainly showed that he assumed them. But presently, glancing across at Hermione, he was surprised by the expression on her face. It seemed to him as if a face of stone had suddenly looked bitterly satirical. He was so astonished ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... to her greeting, "You'll excuse me just a moment, won't you, I must settle some things with my decorator," Miss Burgess felt a rich content in her hostess' choice of words. There were people in Endbury society who would have called him, as had the perplexed maid, "the gentleman from the greenhouse." Later, asked for advice, she had walked about the lower floor of the house with ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... You talk, and you make a man believe you've got something he hasn't got? But where is it, when it comes to? What have you got, more than me or Jim Bricknell! Only a bigger choice of words, it seems ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... to leave the order of subjects and the choice of words and phrases to the impulse of the moment, his thoughts may travel too fast, or too slowly, or too irregularly for the essential result: for the blessing which Christ promised is to those who unite in worship. (S. Matth. xviii. ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... all issues or, indeed, on any issue. He alone is to judge whether he will sport with Amaryllis in the shade or forsake her to write his own Areopagitica. Intellectual integrity expresses itself in the tune as well as argument, in choice of words—words honest and precise—as well as in ideas, in fidelity to human nature and the flowers of the fields as well as to principles, in facts reported more than in deductions proposed. Though a writer write on something as innocuous as the white snails that crawl up broomweed stalks and that ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... than two days before the young gentleman began to pay his court to the young lady. From the first moment it was a plain case. Very soon every one in the pension was highly amused to notice how fluent his French was becoming; his choice of words at times was even elegant! The girl taught him it without a trace of grammar, by charm, sprightliness, a little nonsense; a pair of confiding eyes and a youthful voice were sufficient. It was from her that he got, by stealth, one novel after another. By stealth ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... His choice of words and style of delivery were most carefully studied, and his sonorous voice was under such complete control that he could speak at great length without the slightest fatigue. Many of his illustrations were drawn from the Bible, which he is said to have known ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser |
