Whoever has read the blood-stained pages of history knows what terrors and what agonies have afflicted mankind when words were only half-understood or quarter-understood or quite misunderstood. When these dangerous interpretations of words have been let loose like beasts of prey in the name of religion or war, men, women, and children have in consequence been butchered. For religious scripture and monarchical proclamations are nothing but collections of words. When they are deified, words thereby become deified. Sect wars with sect over the interpretations of a few words in a single scripture and governments war with their own people over the interpretation of a constitutional phrase or a legal clause. Who then dares assert that the worship of words is of no consequence?
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect > Chapter 5 : Semantics > # 83
