A word about a word about words
Monday, 31 March 2008
“At the beginning of everything is the word.
It is a miracle to which we owe the fact that we are human. But at the same time it is a pitfall and a test, a snare and a trial.
More so, perhaps, than it appears to you who have enormous freedom of speech, and might therefore assume that words are not so important.
They are.
They are important everywhere.
The same word can be humble at one moment and arrogant the next. And a humble word can be transformed easily and imperceptibly into an arrogant one, whereas it is a difficult and protracted process to transform an arrogant word into one that is humble.”
—Václav Havel, A Word About Words.