Edward Sapir Quotes

Human beings can only make sense of the world through the lens they were socialized to make sense of it through.

The stories we are told shape the way we see the world, which shapes the way we experience the world.

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

Wherever you grow up, you think of it as normal.

All experience is subjective.

'Ouch' is not independent of social training. One has only to prick a foreigner to appreciate that it is an English word.

Reality doesn't bite, rather our perception of reality bites.

Dreaming or awake, we perceive only events that have meaning to us.

In a sense, every form of expression is imposed upon one by social factors, one's own language above all.

Men's fundamental attitudes toward the world are fixed by the scope and qualities of the activities in which they partake.

A man hears only what he understands.

The truth is whatever people will believe is the truth.

It is not important whether or not the interpretation is correct-- if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.

Expectations are a form of first-class truth: If people believe it, it's true.

There's a reason why young people think what they think. They are taught it. In many cases when they learn at home is erased or countered or overcome.

Through writing, one experiences something different to what one experiences with the five senses one has because language is a different metier.

Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling from others.

What we recall as children is a version of what's happening around us.

You know, sometimes there's a difference between what is actually the truth and what you perceive to be the truth through your social conditioning.

Perception is reality. People take what they want to from things.

You know a guy. You know what's their best pitch. But catching it - that's different.

The prism through which you experience life is so unique. There is no objective experience.

Humans, the supremely social mammals, are ethical and intellectual sponges. We unconsciously absorb, for good or ill, the influences that surround us.

Reading or written language is a cultural invention that necessitated totally new connections among structures in the human brain underlying language, perception, cognition, and, over time, our emotions.

As you grow, you learn and talk about different things.