So in philosophy as in politics

The twentieth century’s most honored writer, William Gass, once said in an interview: “Words are the supreme objects. They are minded things.” And so they are. As pure and transcendent as any Idea which ever cast a shadow into Plato’s dark cave of our perceptions. But they are also pitfalls of deceit and misperception. Words bend our thinking to infinite paths of self-delusion, and the fact that we spend most of our mental lives in brain mansions built of words means that we lack the objectivity necessary to see the terrible distortion of reality which language brings.

Hyperion Cantos, Chapter 3 - Dan Simmons