Words are not trivial. They matter because they raise consciousness.
Interpretation
Words have significant impact and can elevate awareness and understanding.
In this quote, Richard Dawkins emphasizes the importance of words, suggesting that they are not simply casual or insignificant elements of communication. Instead, he posits that words have the power to influence thought, raise consciousness, and shape perceptions, thereby playing a crucial role in how individuals understand and interact with the world around them.
In practice
In a speech about the power of communication, one might use this quote to illustrate the importance of choosing words wisely.
No educated person believes the Adam and Eve myth nowadays, but it's surprising how many parents think that it's somehow fun to pass on this falsehood to their children...I would want to argue that the truth of evolution is more interesting and more poetic
If the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worst than ignorant, they are the deluded to the point of perversity.
The population of the U.S. is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the U.S. leads the world by miles.
When you make machines that are capable of obeying instructions slavishly, and among those instructions are 'duplicate me' instructions, then of course the system is wide open to exploitation by parasites.
Even if not a single fossil has ever been found, the evidence from surviving animals would still overwhelmingly force the conclusion that Darwin was right.
The bitter hatreds that now poison Middle Eastern politics are rooted in the real or perceived wrong of the setting up of a Jewish State in an Islamic region. In view of all that the Jews had been through, it must have seemed a fair and humane solution. Probably deep familiarity with the Old Testament had given the European and American decision-makers some sort of idea that this really was the historic homeland of the Jews.
Poverty does not produce unhappiness: It produces degradation.
I used to read five psalms every day - that teaches me how to get along with God. Then I read a chapter of Proverbs every day and that teaches me how to get along with my fellow man.
It is a good discipline to be forced to work for work's sake, even to the length of not being allowed to enjoy the fruits of one's labour.
You can either be informed and your own rulers, or you can be ignorant and have someone else, who is not ignorant, rule over you.
By profession a biologist, [Thomas Henry Huxley] covered in fact the whole field of the exact sciences, and then bulged through its four fences. Absolutely nothing was uninteresting to him. His curiosity ranged from music to theology and from philosophy to history. He didn't simply know something about everything; he knew a great deal about everything.
Rage is a powerful energy that with diligent practice can be transformed into fierce compassion. However much we disagree with our enemies, our task is to identify with them. They too feel justified in their point of view.
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