All Edward Sapir Quotes
One of the glories of English simplicity is the possibility of using the same word as noun and verb.
Edward Sapir
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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 at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society.
Edward Sapir
61% of people like this quote
More and more, unsolicited gifts from without are likely to be received with unconscious resentment.
Edward Sapir
56% of people like this quote
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 the psychology of a language which one accepts of one's free will.
Edward Sapir
55% of people like this quote
We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.
Edward Sapir
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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.
Edward Sapir
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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 means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection.
Edward Sapir
54% of people like this quote
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 of the freedom of the human spirit that the world has yet known.
Edward Sapir
54% of people like this quote
The spirit of logical analysis should in practice blend with the practical pressure for the adoption of some form of international language, but it should not allow itself to be stampeded by it.
Edward Sapir
54% of people like this quote
I am convinced that the stratigraphic method will in the future enable archaeology to throw far more light on the history of American culture than it has done in the past.
Edward Sapir
53% of people like this quote
So far as the advocates of a constructed international language are concerned, it is rather to be wondered at how much in common their proposals actually have, both in vocabulary and in general spirit of procedure.
Edward Sapir
53% of people like this quote
The supposed inferiority of a constructed language to a national one on the score of richness of connotation is, of course, no criticism of the idea of a constructed language.
Edward Sapir
53% of people like this quote
No important national language, at least in the Occidental world, has complete regularity of grammatical structure, nor is there a single logical category which is adequately and consistently handled in terms of linguistic symbolism.
Edward Sapir
53% of people like this quote
No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality.
Edward Sapir
52% of people like this quote
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