The pen is mightier than the sword
Written word surpasses violence in effecting change.
The idea that writing can achieve more than violence has existed for millennia, but the exact phrase "the pen is mightier than the sword" comes from Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839. It means words are more powerful than force for political or social change. Some also see it as a reference to government administration or a free press.
Quick Facts
- First used by
- Edward Bulwer-Lytton
- Year coined
- 1839
- Play of origin
- Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy
- Theatre of premiere
- Covent Garden Theatre, London
- Premiere date
- 7 March 1839
- Lead actor at premiere
- William Charles Macready
- Earliest known version by
- Ahiqar (early 7th century BCE)
Facts from the source article.
Origin
The exact sentence was coined by Lytton in 1839 for his play Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy, which was about Cardinal Richelieu, though the author allowed license with dates and details. The Cardinal's line in Act II, scene II, was more fully: 'Beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword.' The play opened at London's Covent Garden Theatre on 7 March 1839 with William Charles Macready in the lead role; Macready believed its opening night success was unequivocal, and Queen Victoria attended a performance on 14 March. In 1870, literary critic Edward Sherman Gould wrote that Bulwer had the good fortune to write a line likely to live for ages. By 1888 another author, Charles Sharp, feared that repeating the phrase might sound trite and commonplace. The Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, which opened in 1897, has the adage decorating an interior wall. The saying quickly gained currency; by the 1840s it was a commonplace.
Predecessors
The idea that communication surpasses violence in efficacy had numerous predecessors. Assyrian sage Ahiqar, reputedly living during the early 7th century BCE, coined the first known version: 'The word is mightier than the sword,' found in a copy of the Teachings of Ahiqar dating to about 500 BCE. A similar phrase attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad in a hadith states, 'The ink of the scholar is holier than the blood of the martyr.' Muhammad is also quoted in a saying narrated by 'Abdullah ibn Amr: 'There will be a tribulation that will wipe out the Arabs in which those killed on both sides are in the Hellfire. In that time the spoken word will be stronger than the sword.' Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak, personal scribe and vizier to Akbar the Great who died in 1602, wrote of a gentleman promoted from the pen to the sword. Syad Muhammad Latif, in his 1896 history of Agra, quoted King Abdullah of Bokhara (Abdullah-Khan II, died 1598) as saying he was more afraid of Abu'l-Fazl's pen than of Akbar's sword. In contrast, Abu Tammam's Ode on the Conquest of Amorium includes the line, 'The sword is the truest news [in comparison with] books... In its sharpness, the boundary between seriousness and play.' In 1529, Antonio de Guevara in Reloj de príncipes compared a pen to a lance, books to arms, and a life of studying to a life of war; Thomas North translated it into English in 1557 as Diall of Princes. The analogy appeared again in 1582 in George Whetstone's An Heptameron of Civil Discourses: 'The dashe of a Pen, is more greeuous than the counterbuse of a Launce.' William Shakespeare in 1600, in Hamlet Act 2, scene II, wrote: '... many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills.' Robert Burton in 1621, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, stated: 'It is an old saying, A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword,' and concluded, 'Hinc quam sit calamus saevior ense patet,' which translates as 'From this it is clear how much more cruel the pen may be than the sword.'
As motto and slogan
The phrase appeared as the motto of gold pen manufacturer Levi Willcutt during a Railroad Jubilee in Boston, Massachusetts, in the week beginning 17 September 1852. It appears in the school room illustration on page 168 of the first edition of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876); the words 'pen' and 'is' are suspiciously close together, leading some scholars to speculate that illustrator True Williams deliberately chose the narrow spacing as a subtle obscene prank. It is the motto of the Alpha Xi Delta sorority and of Kaisei Academy in Tokyo, Japan. In its Latinized form Calamus Gladio Fortior, it is the motto of Keio University in Tokyo. In another Latinized form, Cedit Ensis Calamo, it is the motto of the Authors' Club of London, founded by Walter Besant in 1891. In yet another Latinized form, Doctrina Fortior Armis, it is the motto of Hipperholme Grammar School in West Yorkshire, England.
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