During the last presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton decided to make the point that Barack Obama was all smooth talk with no substance. In her attack on him she said that "talk is cheap" and that words were nothing without action.
Her attack really riled Obama, and he fired back with these memorable words (which he plagiarized word for word from a speech by Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts):1
Don't tell me words don't matter. "I have a dream" — just words? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" — just words? Just words? "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" — just words? Just speeches?
Obama was right, words do matter. They matter a lot. The old saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," is a lie. Words can hurt, and hurt deeply. They can even destroy. Just tell a child repeatedly that he or she is "dumb" and watch how it impacts their life.
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