Kenneth L. Pike Quotes

Architecture depends on facts, but its real field of activity lies in the realm of the significance.

Naturally, my body language changes given whatever environment I'm in.

Metaphors, similes, puns - all manner of metonymy - I'm interested in language that cannot be parsed by a machine - language that can only be understood through acculturation.

Descriptive grammar is an attempt to give an account of what the current system is for either a society or an individual, whatever you happen to be studying.

The meanings of words and the uses of words come from practice from the way people in a given culture use those words.

A word is nothing unless it has values and an atmosphere, unless you grasp its historical significance.

If you cross a line and nothing happens, the line loses meaning.

Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation.

Sometimes they're nothing, sometimes they're something, sometimes there's a connection that years later may show up. All of this information is useful.

Language, in its origin and essence, is simply a system of signs or symbols that denote real occurrences or their echo in the human soul.

Imagine, [Kriezler] said, that you enter a large, somewhat crumbling hall that echoes with the sounds of people mumbling and talking repetitively to themselves. All around you these people fall into prostrate positions, some of them weeping. Where are you? Sara’s answer was immediate: in an asylum. Perhaps, Kreizler answered, but you could also be in a church. In the one place the behavior would be considered mad; in the other, not only sane, but as respectable as any human activity can be.

Somewhere we know that without silence, words lose their meaning.

Humans also tend to find community to be pleasurable, and within the boundaries of community relationships, words - often ironic and self-deprecating - are always spoken that take on other meanings when uttered by others.

Culture is public, because meaning is

Everyone has to understand what we're saying to one another and there's no point in me thinking the line means this and the person I'm speaking to thinks it means something else. So there's a certain amount of analyzing of text that's of course necessary.

Nothing remains beautiful and interesting except thought, because the thought is the life.

You know, two people can say exactly the same words, saying the same story, and it would mean something entirely different.

Thought is not merely expressed in words, it comes into existence through them

But suppose it was truth double strong, it were no truth to me if I couldna take it in. I daresay there's truth in yon Latin book on your shelves; but it's gibberish and no truth to me, unless I know the meaning o' the words.

It's hard to make a lot of pop culture references where there's no pop culture.

Any fact becomes important when it's connected to another.

Meaningless yards are not meaningful.

It is the man determines what is said, not the words.

Words must be taken according to the matter whereof they are uttered.

A fact is like a sack which won't stand up if it's empty. In order that it may stand up, one has to put into it the reason and sentiment which caused it to exist.