Precept and Practice – AUGUST 30 – Words

We often bring words and deeds into comparison, as though the former mattered comparatively little.

But for many of us, of course, our words form a large part of our work;  for all of us they form some part;  and the purity, the justice, the precision, the discrimination, the right use of words, is in our work what the like qualities in regard to colours or sounds are to the painter or the musician.   Not only in the work of teaching, but in all the higher relations of life, in conference, in counsel, in ruling or judging, in praising or finding fault, in encouraging or dissuading, in asking or in giving advice, the value of our part in life depends, far more perhaps than we are apt to think, upon the use that we have been wont to make, the use that we desire to make, of words.   A man or woman with a blurred sense of accuracy, a habit of exaggerating, or of letting prejudice get mixed with judgment, is as much hindered in the service of others, in the advancement of the common welfare, as an artist who has lost the sense of what pure colour means.

(Bishop Paget – Studies in the Christian Character)

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From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW