Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.
More Quotes from Benjamin Whorf:
Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it.Benjamin Whorf
Too long has the public mind considered religion to be synonymous with priestcraft.
Benjamin Whorf
At the same time, new concepts and abstractions flow into the picture, taking up the task of describing the universe without reference to such time or space - abstractions for which our language lacks adequate terms.
Benjamin Whorf
Most metaphysical words in Hopi are verbs, not nouns as in European languages.
Benjamin Whorf
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.
Benjamin Whorf
We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language.
Benjamin Whorf
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Liberals are stalwart defenders of civil liberties - provided we're only talking about criminals.
Ann Coulter
A great many things have been pronounced untrue and absurd, and even impossible, by the highest authorities in the age in which they lived, which have afterwards, and, indeed, within a very short period, been found to be both possible and true.
Catherine Crowe