Benjamin Lee Whorf Quotes
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.
Quotes to Explore
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So many Indian novels, quite unfairly, do not get the prominence they should because they have been written in a language other than English.
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I was that weird eight-year-old who was really interested in Shakespeare and understood it and appreciated the language.
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It is no exaggeration to say that the English Bible is, next to Shakespeare, the greatest work in English literature, and that it will have much more influence than even Shakespeare upon the written and spoken language of the English race.
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I don't believe in sharing my money. If I go out and work my nuts off and make some money, I don't feel that I should have to share it with my community.
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I live in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg, so I just like to wander around. Williamsburg's such a cool little neighborhood community spot.
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It seems Palestinians can't win. The language of peace negotiations has always been predicated on a representation that Palestinians are violent and that is why Israel behaves as it does.
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Coffee is a language in itself.
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Diabetes occurs at twice the rate in the African American community as it does in white Americans.
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The real being of language is that into which we are taken up when we hear it - what is said.
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I loved everything about Spain - the people, the language, and the food!
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When I did 'Grease,' I took good care of myself. I treated it like a job. I approached it very professionally because I wanted to make a good reputation and hopefully continue on in the Broadway community and continue to do shows.
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I went to community college for about a year but I'd started taking music seriously by then so I dropped out.
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I come from not just a household but a country where the finesse of language, well-balanced sentence, structure, syntax, these things are driven into us, and my parents, bless them, are great custodians of the English language.
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I am lucky that the Western world chooses me to play roles in their movies an television, whatever language it may be.
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Any successful black person will have to face suspicion within his or her own community about his or her loyalty to other blacks.
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The object of poetic activity is essentially language: whatever his beliefs and convictions, the poet is more concerned with words than with what these words designate.
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I think with all my books, language has been their subject as much as anything else. Language can elide or displace or sideline whole groups of people. You can't necessarily change the way language is used, but if it becomes something you're conscious of... that gives you a certain power over it.
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Planned Parenthood is a pretty popular organization. Way more popular than Congress! It claims that one in five women have received care from one of its clinics. And this care, despite what abortion opponents say, is excellent and not easily replaceable by 'community health centers.' Texas tried it, and thousands of women went without care.
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Americans have always prized individuality - it is part of our national DNA - but America is a community that draws strength from the sum of our people and has always known that the total of that sum is worth far more than its individual parts.
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Network TV is so limiting. There are so many parameters.
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There's a million leading men on TV today that are perfectly great, and their jobs are fantastic. But it's not as interesting to me when every fight they win, every case they solve, every girl they get.
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The most important fact is that gays have been here since day one. To say otherwise is a gross denial and stupidity. We played an enormous part in the history of America.
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So many Americans, for one reason or another, they watch the news and it doesn't really give them the idea of the world. Or they don't read or travel. They have no idea that America is part of the world and not the world itself.
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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.
