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

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

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.

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.

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.

Anyone who really knows two or more tongues realizes that even that small enlargement of liberty . . . gives him new perspectives, exercizes his soul anew.

Speech is the best show a man puts on.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Anti-Americanism, by which I mean a hatred for America as such-its transformation into a metaphysical category, which incarnates all the evil in the world-is one of fascism’s favorite themes.

For the Cro-Magnons, space is a metaphysical arena of continually intermittent appearances and disappearances.

Love is metaphysical gravity.

I have sacrificed a physical bond, for a metaphysical relationship. I am the ultimate idealistic lover.