For an author it is not difficult to realize that a book can
never be completed. One can put a coma or maybe a semicolon after a thought,
but never a full stop. As an author I stand exposed before myself several times
in a day. Yesterday, by chance, my eyes fell on the following words of Voltaire
(Francois-Marie Arouet) that I used in my book “In Search of Our Wonderful
Words”. A sense of guilt gripped me instantly as I had not done justice to the
words of an author known for his wit and who gave more than 2000 books and
pamphlets to this world, while writing my above referred book.
“Men use thoughts only as authority for their
injustice, and employ speech to conceal their thoughts.”
In another place he wrote;
“One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.”
Although I worked hard with my book to say that the source of
right words could only be the right thoughts, but, perhaps, I could not employ
Voltaire’s wit to define what is ‘right’. Can we say that the man’s ‘injustice’
defines what is not right? If that is so, ‘human justice’ can be viewed as the
simplest and the most straightforward definition of what is right.
I tried to take as much care in my book to explain what ‘human
justice’ is, without using this very expression, i.e., ‘human justice’. I am
indeed obliged to Voltaire to have helped me in simplifying one of the key
thoughts I presented in my book, after four centuries.
Incidentally, at times it is much better to view things the
other way round, to draw a picture that is simple to comprehend.
PROMOD
KUMAR SHARMA
[This
blog is being presented by the author of “Mahatma A Scientist of the
Intuitively Obvious” and “In Search of Our Wonderful Words”.]
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