12 Quotes by Benjamin Lee Whorf

Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.

Speech is the best show a man puts on.

Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it.

Most metaphysical words in Hopi are verbs, not nouns as in European languages.

A change in language can transform our appreciation of the cosmos.

We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way – an agreement that holds through our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language.

We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language.

The very natural tendency to use terms derived from traditional grammar like verb, noun, adjective, passive voice, in describing languages outside of Indo-European is fraught with grave possibilities of misunderstanding.

But in due course it became evident that not only a physical situation qua physics, but the meaning of that situation to people, was sometimes a factor, through the behavior of people, in the start of a fire.