It is true that words have power, and one of the things they are able to do is get out of someone’s mouth before the speaker has the chance to stop them.
Interpretation
Words can have a significant impact, often spoken before we realize their weight.
This quote by Terry Pratchett highlights the inherent power of words and the tendency of speakers to express thoughts impulsively, sometimes without fully considering the consequences. It emphasizes the importance of mindfulness in our communication, as words can shape perceptions and relationships profoundly.
In practice
During a workshop on effective communication, one might say, 'As Terry Pratchett wisely noted, words have power and can escape before we think.'
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
Only lies offend me, never honest counsel.
It is a great art to have an abundance of knowledge and experience - to know the richness of life, the beauty of existence, the struggles, the miseries, the laughter, the tears - and yet keep your mind very simple; and you can have a simple mind only when you know how to love.
Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet.
If you must say yes, say it with an open heart. If you must say no, say it without fear.
To name a thing is easy: the difficulty is to discern it before its appearance.
The analysis of data will not by itself produce new ideas.
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