Naming Things Quotes

• The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.

  Confucius

  Wisdom, Names, Chinese Proverb

  "The Analects". Book by Confucius,

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• It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things.

  Oscar Wilde

  Names, Giving, Lovely

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.812, GENERAL PRESS

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• Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit.

  Salman Rushdie

  Dust, Names, Sound

  Salman Rushdie (1989). “The Satanic Verses”, New York, N.Y. : Viking

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• Naming things, breaking through taboos and denial is the most dangerous, terrifying, and crucial work. This has to happen in spite of political climates or coercions, in spite of careers being won or lost, in spite of the fear of being criticized, outcast, or disliked. I believe freedom begins with naming things. Humanity is preserved by it.

  Eve Ensler

  Believe, Careers, Political

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• By virtue of this science the poet is the Namer, or Language-maker, naming things sometimes after their appearance, sometimes after their essence, and giving to every one its own name and not another's, thereby rejoicing the intellect, which delights in detachment or boundary.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Essence, Names, Giving

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.192, Penguin

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• It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.

  Oscar Wilde

  Love, Funny, Humorous

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Picture of Dorian Gray (Diversion Classics)”, p.212, Diversion Books

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• You call a star a star, and say it is just a ball of matter moving on a mathematical course. But that is merely how you see it. By so naming things and describing them you are only inventing your own terms about them. And just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth.

  Humphrey Carpenter

  Stars, Moving, Ideas

  Humphrey Carpenter (1977). “Tolkien: A Biography”, Boston : Houghton Mifflin

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• For me, Christianity is not a genre. It's faith. The Gospel is not a genre either. It's faith. I definitely understand the semantics of naming things to give them some kind of distinction but I think my faith is pretty distinct. If you want to call it hip hop, essentially it is. That's the art form.

  LeCrae

  Art, Thinking, Giving

  "A conversation with Christian hip hop artist Lecrae". Interview with Chad Bonham, www.beliefnet.com.

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• I feel happy to be keeping a journal again. I've missed it, missed naming things as they appear, missed the half hour when I push all duties aside and savor the experience of being alive in this beautiful place.

  May Sarton

  Beautiful, Diaries, Half

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• Even now, it's still hard for him to say it. I don't blame him. It's an icky word. Why couldn't whoever was in charge of naming things call cancer 'sugar' and sugar, 'cancer'? People might not eat so much of the stuff then. And it's so much more pleasant to die of sugar.

  Sarah Wylie

  Cancer, People, Might

  Sarah Wylie (2012). “All These Lives”, p.67, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

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