As I have said before, I never had any large respect for good spelling. That is my feeling yet. Before the spelling-book came with its arbitrary forms, men unconsciously revealed shades of their characters, and also added enlightening shades of expression to what they wrote by their spelling, and so it is possible that the spelling-book has been a doubtful benevolence to us.
If we are forced, at every hour, to watch or listen to horrible events, this constant stream of ghastly impressions will deprive even the most delicate among us of all respect for humanity.
I believe that words can help us move or keep us paralysed, and that our choices of language and verbal tone have something - a great deal - to do with how we live our lives and whom we end up speaking with and hearing; and that we can deflect words by trivialization, of course, but also by ritualized respect, or we can let them enter our souls and mix with the juices of our minds.
The scientist is activated by a wonder and awe before the mysterious comprehensibility of the universe which is yet finally beyond his grasp. In its profoundest depths it is inaccessible to man.