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.
You are something new in this world. Never before, since the beginning of time, has there ever been anybody exactly like you; and never again throughout all the ages to come will there ever be anybody exactly like you again.
Do not try to explain feelings. Live everything intensely and treasure what you feel as a gift from God.
Always do I recall the parting words uttered by my old governor: "My boy, never . . ." I won't set 'em down. I disregarded them fool-like and paid, and paid; had I a son I'd hand 'em on and ram 'em home. What fools we be when young. We fancy we be wise, forgetting that the old boys have graduated in the 'varsity of the world, the greatest 'varsity of all, and each day we should learn from they.
Those who have experienced good and bad luck many times have every reason to be skeptical of successes
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Man performs and engenders so much more than he can or should have to bear. That's how he finds that he can bear anything.
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