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StillnessQuote

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

Rudyard Kipling, speech to the Royal College of Surgeons, 1923

LiteratureLanguage

The story behind the card

Kipling said this at the annual dinner of the Royal College of Surgeons in London in February 1923, in a speech later printed as ‘Surgeons and the Soul’. Speaking to doctors, he took the idea of a drug seriously: words, he went on, can infect, poison, numb and paralyse, and even colour the tiniest cells of the brain. Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), born in Bombay, wrote The Jungle Book, Kim and the poem ‘If—’, and in 1907 became the first English-language writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Türkçe oku
Sözcükler elbette insanoğlunun kullandığı en güçlü ilaçtır.
Rudyard Kipling, Kraliyet Cerrahlar Koleji konuşması, 1923

Kipling bu sözü Şubat 1923'te, Londra'da Kraliyet Cerrahlar Koleji'nin yıllık yemeğinde yaptığı konuşmada söyledi; konuşma sonradan “Surgeons and the Soul” (Cerrahlar ve Ruh) başlığıyla yayımlandı. Hekimlere seslenen Kipling, ilaç benzetmesini sonuna kadar götürür: Sözcükler insana mikrop gibi bulaşabilir, onu zehirleyebilir, uyuşturabilir, felç edebilir; hatta beynin en küçük hücrelerine kadar işleyip onlara kendi rengini verebilir. Bombay'da doğan Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), Orman Kitabı'nın, Kim romanının ve “Eğer” şiirinin yazarıdır. 1907'de, İngilizce yazanlar arasında Nobel Edebiyat Ödülü'nü kazanan ilk isim oldu.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Rudyard Kipling
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