Pen is mightier than the sword

Verbatim, the quotation is attributed to Edward Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873). The following lines appear in his play Richelieu (1839) Act II, Scene II, “Beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword.” In the English translation of Cervantes’ Don Quixote (1703), it is expressed somewhat disbelievingly, “Let none presume to tell me that the pen is preferable to the sword.” Marlowe (1564-1593) uses a similar thought in Tamburlaine the Great, “Our swords shall play the orators for us.” The notion, however, that words, whether written or spoken, are more powerful than warlike actions is very ancient. Egyptian tablets c.3400 BC in the Maxims of Ptahhotep record, “Speech is mightier than all fighting.” General MacArthur, the famous US general in WWII, agrees with Cervantes because he once remarked, “Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.”