A few famous and inspiring quotes about pens and writing implements from well known and not so well-known people. Inspirational quotes to motivate, inspire or just think upon while using pens. Feel free to save the best quote for your office desk.
With all written about pens if I have missed anything significant or a quotation just add it to this collection below.
“If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.”
Martin Luther
“’I can always live by my pen.”
Jane Austen – author
“To hold a pen is to be at war.”
Voltaire
“You want to be a writer, don’t know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a humble pen.”
Paul Simon
“One book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world.”
Malala Yousafzai
“Hold your pen and spare your voice.”
Dorothy Parker
“None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try.”
Mark Twain
“Sadness takes up the pen more readily than joy.”
Henri Frederic Amiel
“I write everything with fountain pens. I don’t know why. I’ve done it since I was bar mitzvahed. I was given a fountain pen, a Parker fountain pen, and I loved it, and I’ve never liked writing anything with pencils or ball-points.”
Tony Kushner
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
Maya Angelou
“A pen is to me as a beak is to a hen.”
J. R. R. Tolkien
“The pen is the lever that moves the world.”
Thomas De Witt Talmage
For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, ‘It might have been’
John Greenleaf Whittier
“It is through the tongue, the pen, and the press that truth is principally propagated.”
Angelina Grimke
“A pen transmits the voice of the soul.”
Fennel Hudson
“There is more done with pens than with swords.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe
“The hand that holds the pen writes history.”
Film “Colette”
“The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.”
Terry Pratchett – author
“Beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword.”
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
“Everyday of your life is a page of your history.”
Robin Roark
“Do not consider it proof just because it is written in books, for a liar who will deceive with his tongue will not hesitate to do the same with his pen.”
Maimonides
“I wear my Pen as others do their Sword.”
John Oldham
“There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a great competition and rivalry between the two. There is a third power stronger than both, that of the women.”
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
“There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.”
William Makepeace Thackeray
“You can make anything by writing.”
C.S. Lewis
“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”
Virginia Woolf
“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”
E. L. Doctorow
“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
Toni Morrison
“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”
William Wordsworth
“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”
Stephen King
These inspirational pen quotes also have other uses besides those first mentioned. A marvellous idea for an engraving or to include with a gift pens.
These old sayings a hand-picked selection of what I thought the best. There are many more I may have missed. If your favourite pen writings are not here, please leave it below.
