Hi
I've had fun reading - finally gathered guts to put a post myself. While browsing the net I came across this

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought, and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.
- - - Oliver Wendell Holmes, opinion, Towne v. Eisner, January 7, 1918

The phrase "skin of living thought" stuck in my mind not only because it's poetry, but it helped me while writing (when words weren't coming easy, working more on the thought helped). I wondered whether anyone else has come across interesting descriptions/observations/opinions about words, they liked.