Edward Sapir Quotes

37 quotes in 605 categories

• The psychology of a language which, in one way or another, is imposed upon one because of factors beyond one's control, is very different from…
• We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.
• Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much…
• What fetters the mind and benumbs the spirit is ever the dogged acceptance of absolutes.
• Language is the most massive and inclusive art we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious generations.
• A common allegiance to form of expression that is identified with no single national unit is likely to prove one of the most potent symbols…
• A second type of direct evidence is formed by statements, whether as formal legends or personal information, regarding the age or relative sequence of events…
• A standard international language should not only be simple, regular, and logical, but also rich and creative.
• A logical analysis of reflexive usages in French shows, however, that this simplicity is an illusion and that, so far from helping the foreigner, it…
• As a matter of fact, a national language which spreads beyond its own confines very quickly loses much of its original richness of content and…
• Comparison of statements made at different periods frequently enable us to give maximal and minimal dates to the appearance of a cultural element or to…
• Both French and Latin are involved with nationalistic and religious implications which could not be entirely shaken off, and so, while they seemed for a…
• Cultural anthropology is more and more rapidly getting to realize itself as a strictly historical science.
• English, once accepted as an international language, is no more secure than French has proved to be as the one and only accepted language of…
• Language is an anonymous, collective and unconscious art; the result of the creativity of thousands of generations.
• The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.
• It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental…
• More and more, unsolicited gifts from without are likely to be received with unconscious resentment.
• It would, of course, be hopeless to attempt to crowd into an international language all those local overtones of meaning which are so dear to…
• It is no secret that the fruits of language study are in no sort of relation to the labour spent on teaching and learning them.

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