The pen is mightier than the sword


What's the meaning of the phrase 'The pen is mightier than the sword'?

Literal meaning.

What's the origin of the phrase 'The pen is mightier than the sword'?

‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ was coined by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in for his play Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy, 1839:

True, This! –
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch-enchanters wand! – itself a nothing! –
But taking sorcery from the master-hand
To paralyse the Caesars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless! – Take away the sword –
States can be saved without it!

Bulwer-Lytton may have coined the phrase but he was preceded by several others who expressed essentially the same idea:

George Whetstone, in Heptameron of Civil Discourses, 1582, wrote “The dashe of a Pen, is more greevous than the counterbuse of a Launce.”

In Hamlet, 1602, Shakespeare gave Rosencrantz the line “… many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.”

Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621 includes “From this it is clear how much more cruel the pen may be than the sword.”

Thomas Jefferson sent a letter to Thomas Paine in 1796, in which he wrote: “Go on doing with your pen what in other times was done with the sword.”

See also, it was a dark and stormy night.

Gary Martin is a writer and researcher on the origins of phrases and the creator of the Phrase Finder website. Over the past 26 years more than 700 million of his pages have been downloaded by readers. He is one of the most popular and trusted sources of information on phrases and idioms.

Gary Martin

Writer and researcher on the origins of phrases and the creator of the Phrase Finder website. Over the past 26 years more than 700 million of his pages have been downloaded by readers. He is one of the most popular and trusted sources of information on phrases and idioms.
The pen is mightier than the sword

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