# What does ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’ mean?

To “the pen is mightier than the sword” means to persuasion and writing outweigh force. Brewer's attributes the modern phrasing to Edward Bulwer-Lytton's play Richelieu (1839).

## What it means

- Brewer's attributes the modern phrasing to Edward Bulwer-Lytton's play Richelieu (1839).

## Action steps

1. Common in journalism and advocacy.
2. Example: The exposé changed policy — the pen is mightier than the sword.

## Sources

- [Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) — Internet Archive scan](https://archive.org/details/brewers-dictionary-of-phrase-and-fable)

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