Language is like magic. Words can transport you to other worlds, conjure up emotions, and spark inspiration. Few understand the power of language more than writers and philosophers, who use words as the essential tools of their craft. This article gathers some of the thoughts of these experts to showcase a few of the powers words have, from imagination and connection to disruption and liberation.
imagination
One of the key powers of language is to encourage and broaden our imagination. When we read a good novel, we picture the events in our mind’s eye; it’s almost as if we are on the adventure ourselves. In fact, the word imagination comes from the Latin imāginātiō, which means “mental image.” The philosopher Wittgenstein even went so far as to believe that humans can only imagine things that they have language for.
The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for. —Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922
In order for me to speak a truer word concerning myself, I must strip down through layers of attenuated meanings, made an excess in time, over time, assigned by a particular historical order, and there await whatever marvels of my own inventiveness. —Hortense J. Spillers, Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe, 1987
Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own. —attributed to Carol Burnett
connection
Another important role of language is to give humans the ability to build connections with one another. The creator of the American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster, felt that a common language (with its own spelling rules) was important for the formation of an American national identity. Otherwise, how could people effectively communicate with one another?
Language is the expression of ideas; and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas, they cannot retain an identity of language. —Noah Webster, preface to American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
“There are things that cannot be said,” it is true. But what cannot be said is what must be written. Discovering the hidden and communicating it, these are two spurs that drive the writer. —Maria Zambrano Alarcón, Por qué se escribe, 1934
beauty
As any poet worth their salt could tell you, one important power of language is to emphasize beauty. The words themselves can be beautiful, as the precocious Anne from Anne of Green Gables notes about the word rose, and they can also make one think of beauty in the world. The best writers can use words to demonstrate both forms of beauty at once, as in the quote from Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, where the words and cadence are aesthetically pleasing and also leave the impression of a nostalgic reverie.
A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language. —Gaston Bachelard, Fragments of a Poetics of Fire, 1988
“I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I’ve never been able to believe it. I don’t believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage.” —Anne from Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, 1908
He says, she says, somebody else says things have been said so often that one word is now enough to lift a whole weight. Argument, laughter, old grievances—they fall through the air, thickening it. —Virginia Woolf, The Waves, 1931
disruption
While language can be beautiful, it can also be shocking and disruptive. Words can jar the audience out of their day-to-day considerations and encourage them to act differently. They are not always gentle. After all, disrupt comes from the Latin for “break away.” Writers and philosophers like Monique Wittig and May Sarton identify the power of words to impose themselves.
Like desire, language disrupts, refuses to be contained within boundaries. It speaks itself against our will, in words and thoughts that intrude, even violate the most private spaces of mind and body … Words impose themselves, take root in our memory against our will. —bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 1994
Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts upon the unthinking. —John Maynard Keynes, “National Self-Sufficiency,” The Yale Review, 1933
Language casts sheaves of reality upon the social body, stamping it and violently shaping it. —Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays, 1992
The more articulate one is, the more dangerous words become. —May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude, 1992
liberation
Words are incredibly powerful because of their ability to take all of the qualities we have already discussed (connection, imagination, disruption, and beauty) and direct it toward liberation. Liberation is the act of becoming free. It is used to describe the process of making a better world for all. Writer Angela Carter addresses this idea directly.
It has not been for nothing that the word has remained man’s principal toy and tool: without the meanings and values it sustains, all man’s other tools would be worthless. —Lewis Mumford, The Transformations of Man, 1957
Language is power, life and the instrument of culture, the instrument of domination and liberation. —Angela Carter, Shaking a Leg, 1998
What words do you find to be the most powerful? Liberation and imagination might be two good ones to consider. If you want some more suggestions for powerful terms, check out this list of 22 motivational words.
