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"We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation."
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"All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it."

"Observing and commenting, it is a piece of cake.Experiencing and sharing, that is a piece of work."

"Now that he wanted to feel like he was having a bad dream, he wasn't. He was having a bad reality, and that was something from which you could not wake."

"To 'live' is to realize that without the journey the destination is nothing more than a task rigorously completed rather than an experience riotously lived."

"Perfume counters in department stores, Holly Deblin smells of, the middle of July, and cinnamon Tic Tacs."

"I have found little that is "good" about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think."

"It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it."

"Vanya soon found that America might be an exciting place to arrive, but living there could become, in time, as boring as anything else."

"Any experience can be transformed into something of value."
Explore more quotes by Edward Sapir


"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."


"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 the heart of the nationalist."


"Impatience translates itself into a desire to have something immediate done about it all, and, as is generally the case with impatience, resolves itself in the easiest way that lies ready to hand."


"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."


"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."


"A standard international language should not only be simple, regular, and logical, but also rich and creative."


"The attitude of independence toward a constructed language which all national speakers must adopt is really a great advantage, because it tends to make man see himself as the master of language instead of its obedient servant."


"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."


"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."


"A firm, for instance, that does business in many countries of the world is driven to spend an enormous amount of time, labour, and money in providing for translation services."
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