Oh, he was just angry, we tell ourselves when someone blurts out something he later apologizes for. But a word, once spoken, lingers forever; to keep peace we pretend to forget, but we never do. Strange that a spoken word can have such lasting power when words carved on stone monuments vanish in spite of all our efforts to preserve them. What we would lose persists, lodged in our minds, and what we would keep is lost to water, moths, moss.
Interpretation
Spoken words can have lasting effects, often more than physical inscriptions, impacting our memories and relationships.
This quote emphasizes the profound impact that spoken words can have on individuals and relationships. While we might try to brush aside hurtful comments by attributing them to anger or temporary emotions, the reality is that such words leave a lasting impression on our minds. In contrast, physical representations of words, like those on monuments, often fade and disappear over time. The quote poignantly highlights the idea that while we might strive to preserve certain memories or words, it is often the painful or damaging words that remain etched in our minds.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a workshop on effective communication to highlight how words can affect people.
Now I felt the long-forgotten urgency of lovemaking, when it seems one's human selves leave, to be replaced by hungry beasts bolting their food. Gone are the civilized beings who talk of manners and journeys and letters; in their places are two bodies straining to give birth to a burst of inhuman pleasure followed by a great, floating nothingness. An explosion of life followed by death - in this we live, and in this we foreshadow our own sweet deaths.
When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.
I would rather a thousand times be five minutes at the feet of Christ than listen a lifetime to all the wise men in the world.
It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.
You don't carry in your countenance a letter of recommendation.
To solve a problem or to reach a goal, you don't need to know all the answers in advance. But you must have a clear idea of the problem or the goal you want to reach.
You can't help but... with 20/20 hindsight, go back and say, 'Look, had we done something different, we probably wouldn't be facing what we are facing today.'
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