Sapir-Whorf hypothesis Quotes

The words of language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The physical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images.

Was it really so far-fetched to think that words had a way of shaping a person's whole life?

We don't realize how much we create reality through language. If we say that life is hard, it will be hard.

Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.

Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.

We think in language. The quality of our thoughts and ideas can only be as good as the quality of our language.

Ideas do not exist separately from language.

The only living language is the language in which we think and have our being.

Language does our thinking for us.

Language, as symbol, determines much of the nature and quality of our experience.

Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.

A man who has a language consequently possesses the world expressed and implied by that language.

Only where there is language is there world.

For if consciousness is based on language, then it follows that it is of much more recent origin than has been heretofore supposed. Consciousness come after language! The implications of such a position are extremely serious.

We live at the level of our language. Whatever we can articulate we can imagine or understand or explore.

Man does not exist prior to language, either as a species or as an individual.

Language is the picture and counterpart of thought.

Language surely does affect our thoughts, rather than just labeling them for the sake of labeling them. Most obviously, language is the conduit through which people share their thoughts and intentions and thereby acquire the knowledge, customs, and values of those around them."

Language is not a handmaiden to perception; it is perception; it gives shape to what would otherwise be inert and dead.