"A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof." (Prov 18:20, 21) "For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body." (James 3:2) I think it was Napoleon Hill who said that thoughts are things. That we have the propensity to attract what we think. And most times we can shape or reshape our lives, outcomes, expectations, personalities by simply changing the way we think and the things we think. I think he called the book "Think and Grow Rich". As powerful as our thoughts are, our words are more powerful and possibly more dangerous. This is because our thoughts affect only us; but our words affect also the people who hear them. We can change our lives by changing the way we think; but we can change an entire city by what we say. "It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it " (James 3:5, The Message). If we want to make the world a better place , we must start by saying better things. Our words bear lasting effects long after they are spoken. Let us say the right thing always..
Most times we say things we don't mean possibly in anger, frustration, jest, etc. But most cases the people who receive our words may not know the emotions behind them. In the court of law, people are judged by what they say, not what they wanted to say or what they think. Paul said that our words should be seasoned with salt (Col 4:6). This is an allegory to show the importance of saying the right things and being mindful of the impact our words may have on the lives of others. We may not always know this: but people are listening to us and they care about what we say, even if they don't admit that to us.