Posted by Chaya Grace Champion on July 06, 2005 at 00:15:41:
"The tongue has the power of life and death." -- Proverbs
This may be one of the most powerful truths of the human existence. Pure, raw power. The tongue has a power, and it can create, with simple words, either life or death in another person. Speak words of praise or encouragement and the other person feels -- and lives -- life. Speak words of disdain or condemnation and the other person feels -- and again, lives -- death. What a privilege to be able to create in someone else the very nature of life! What an opportunity to leave behind us a wake of people feeling great about themselves!
(Sorry, I don't know where I got this. Does anyone recognize it?)
If eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Rhodora
Talking is one of the fine arts…and its fluent harmonies may be spoiled by the intrusion of a single harsh note.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes
God has given us tongues so that we may say something pleasant to our fellow men.
-Heinrich Heine, Confessions