Benjamin Lee Whorf Quotes

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

  Benjamin Lee Whorf

  Communication, Thinking, Shapes

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

  Benjamin Lee Whorf

  Writing, Defining, Language

  'Thinking in Primitive Communities' in Hoyer (ed.) 'New Directions in the Study of Language' 1964

  27 Copy quote

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

  Benjamin Lee Whorf

  Appreciation, Cosmos, Language

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

  Benjamin Lee Whorf

  Nature, Native Language, Lines

  "Science and Linguistics" (1946)

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• Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it. So if, from perhaps some unhealthy desire for sympathetic support, you describe your life in negative terms you will find that this will reinforce your mind's negative emotions and make you unhappy and even more susceptible to feeling unhappy in the future. By simply doing the reverse and focusing on why you are lucky and grateful things are not worse, you will strengthen and increase your mind's positive emotions and make yourself happy and even more likely to feel happy in the future.

  Benjamin Lee Whorf

  Gratitude, Grateful, Support You

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• Speech is the best show a man puts on.

  Benjamin Lee Whorf

  Men, Speech, Language

  Benjamin Lee Whorf, John Bissell Carroll (1964). “Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf”, p.249, MIT Press

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• 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.

  Benjamin Lee Whorf

  Party, Cutting, Agreement

  "Science and Linguistics" (1946)

  17 Copy quote

• The world that is coming toward us out of time is going to be very much richer in a mental sense because (among other freedoms) we are going to get a modicum of freedom from linguistic frameworks, from familiar mental habits. Anyone who really knows two or more tongues realizes that even that small enlargement of liberty . . . gives him new perspectives, exercizes his soul anew.

  Benjamin Lee Whorf

  Two, Giving, Perspective

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• 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.

  Benjamin Lee Whorf

  Passive Voice, Nouns, Adjectives

  Benjamin Lee Whorf, John B. Carroll, Stephen C. Levinson, Penny Lee (2012). “Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf”, p.113, MIT Press

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

  Benjamin Lee Whorf

  Europe, Verbs, Nouns

  Benjamin Lee Whorf, John Bissell Carroll (1964). “Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf”, p.61, MIT Press

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• Too long has the public mind considered religion to be synonymous with priestcraft.

  Benjamin Lee Whorf

  Long, Mind

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• 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 Lee Whorf

  Fire, People, Sometimes

  Benjamin Lee Whorf, John Bissell Carroll (1964). “Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf”, p.135, MIT Press

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• My analysis was directed toward purely physical conditions, such as defective wiring, presence of lack of air spaces between metal flues and woodwork, etc., and the results were presented in these terms.

  Benjamin Lee Whorf

  Air, Space, Analysis

  Benjamin Lee Whorf, John Bissell Carroll (1964). “Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf”, p.135, MIT Press

  7 Copy quote

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