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The power of words

September 8, 2008 — by Jacqueline

They sing.
They hurt.
They teach.
They sanctify.They were man’s first immeasurable feat of magic.They liberated us from ignorance and our barbarous past.

For without these marvelous scribbles which build letters into words, words into sentences, sentences into systems and sciences and creeds, man would be forever confined to the self-isolated prison of the scuttlefish and chimpanzee.

“One picture is worth a ten thousand words,” goes the timeworn Chinese maxim. “But,” one writer tartly said, “It takes words to say that.”

We live by words: Love, Truth, God.

We fight for words: Freedom, Country, Fame.

We die for words: Liberty, Glory, Honor.

They bestow the priceless gift of articulacy on our minds and hearts– from “Mama” to “infinity.”

And the men [and women] who truly shape our destiny, the giants who teach us, inspire us, lead us to deeds of immortality, are those who use words with clarity, grandeur and passion: Socrates, Jesus, Luther, Lincoln, Churchill.

–Leo Rosten

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2 Comments »

  1. leafless said:

    Speechless!

    September 10, 2008 @ 1:03 am

  2. Mrs, B said:

    BRAVO! Well said!

    September 10, 2008 @ 7:40 pm

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Sometimes the truth is
Not what you want it to be.
Is it ever what you expected?
No, probably not.
Are you okay with that?
Are we meant to create truth or
Are we meant to find it?

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