The Power and Sanctity of Words - Jeffrey R Holland

I wish to caution us, if caution is needed, regarding how we speak to each other and how we speak of ourselves.

There is a line from the Apocrypha which puts the seriousness of this issue better than I can. It reads, “The stroke of the whip maketh marks in the flesh: but the stroke of the tongue breaketh the bones.”3 With that stinging image in mind, I was particularly impressed to read in the book of James that there was a way I could be “a perfect man.”

Said James: “For in many things we offend all. [But] if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.”

Jeffrey R. Holland, The Tongue of Angels, General Conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, April 2007

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2007/04/the-tongue-of-angels?lang=eng&id=p4-p6#p4