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Speech itself is nothing without actions, power and trust - talk is cheap.

The same insults and threats hurled at you by a person in a position of power have a very different meaning when coming from someone powerless.

Likewise promises from somebody trustworthy are much more powerful than from a stranger.

My point being: it's not the speech that's powerful, it's the person behind it.

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you seem very certain soft (volume) speech can't harm. okay then you should be fine with this experiment (and confident about its result): let me put you into a room and have people come in for 8 hours a day and call you stupid, ugly, worthless, a disappointment, etc. in perfectly mild tones for exactly one month. we'll perform a mood/outlook/mental health assessment before and after. do you think there will be a difference in the two assessments?

Huh? What you're saying does not relate to what he's saying at all. He's talking about people in positions of power, you're talking about volume?

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