52 Quotes by Edward Sapir

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.

Language is the most massive and inclusive art we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious generations.

One of the glories of English simplicity is the possibility of using the same word as noun and verb.

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.

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.

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 is more calculated to bother him.

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.

No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality.

More and more, unsolicited gifts from without are likely to be received with unconscious resentment.