Words

"Words were to Tolkien the most beautiful things in the world. That would be a ridiculous preference for a Hindu or a Buddhist, but not for a Christian, for whom the most beautiful thing human eyes have ever seen is called 'the Word of God'."
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"The power of words is based on the fact that real things are found in words. Words are not merely things among a world of things, things with one additional feature, the ability to point to other things. No, words are the encompassing frame of the world of things. Things constitute a "world" only by the creative word of the author, who names them."

-Peter J. Kreeft, The Philosophy of Tolkien