By Speech First

By speech first, but far more by writing, man has been able to put something of himself beyond death. In tradition and in books an integral part of the individual persists, for it can influence the minds and actions of other people in different places and at different times: a row of black marks on a page can move a man to tears, though the bones of him that wrote it are long ago crumbled to dust. In truth, the whole progress of civilization is based upon this power.

-- Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS (22 June 1887 - 14 February 1975), English evolutionary biologist, author, humanist and internationalist