18 quotes
The verb is relatively of much greater importance in an Indian tongue than in a civilized language.
Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages (1880)
Years of drought and famine come and years of flood and famine come, and the climate is not changed with dance, libation or prayer.
Honest investigation is but the application of common sense to the solution of the unknown. Science does not wait on Genius, but is the companion of Industry.
The Larger Import of Scientific Education (1885)
In my supposed death I had attained to a glory which I fear my continued life has not fully vindicated.
Canyons of the Colorada (1895)
Indian nouns are extremely connotive; that is, the name does more than simply denote the thing to which it belongs; in denoting the object, it also assigns to it some quality or characteristic.
Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages (1880)
The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail.
Canyons of the Colorada (1895)
You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view, as if it were a changeless spectacle from which a curtain might be lifted, but to see it you have to toil from month to month through its labyrinths.
Canyons of the Colorada (1895)
The integers of language are sentences, and their organs are the parts of speech. Linguistic organization, then, consists in the differentiation of the parts of speech and the integration of the sentence.
Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages (1880)
The history of the world is replete with illustrations to the effect that the greater the ignorance the greater the abomination of unconforming opinion, and the greater the knowledge the greater the charity for dissenting opinions.
The Larger Import of Scientific Education (1885)
Realizing the difficulty of painting in word colors a land so strange, so wonderful, and so vast in its features, in the weakness of my descriptive powers I have sought refuge in graphic illustration.
Canyons of the Colorada (1895)
Possible ideas and thoughts are vast in number. A distinct word for every distinct idea and thought would require a vast vocabulary. The problem in language is to express many ideas and thoughts with comparatively few words.
Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages (1880)
In Seneca the north is "the sun never goes there," and this sentence may be used as adjective or noun; in such cases noun, adjective, verb, and adverb are found as one vocable or word, and the four parts of speech are undifferentiated.
Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages (1880)
In Ute the name for bear is "he seizes," or "the hugger." In this case the verb is used for the noun, and in so doing the Indian names the bear by predicating one of his characteristics. Thus noun and verb are undifferentiated.
Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages (1880)
Economy in speech is the force by which its development has been accomplished, and it divides itself properly into economy of utterance and economy of thought. Economy of utterance has had to do with the phonic constitution of words; economy of thought has developed the sentence.
Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages (1880)
The exploration was not made for adventure, but purely for scientific purposes, geographic and geologic, and I had no intention of writing an account of it, but only of recording the scientific results.
Canyons of the Colorada (1895)
The mountain slopes...are covered with dense forests of pines and firs. The lakes are often fringed with beautiful aspens, and when the autumn winds come their golden leaves are carried over the landscape in clouds of resplendent sheen.
Canyons of the Colorada (1895)
In the past, history has been devoted chiefly to the exploits of heroes and the story of wars; but history is now being speedily reorganized and rewritten upon a scientific basis, to exhibit the growth of culture in all its grand departments. History itself is now a science, and is no longer an art in which men exploit in rhetorical paragraphs.
The Larger Import of Scientific Education (1885)
The landscape everywhere, away from the river, is of rock—cliffs of rock, tables of rock, plateaus of rock, terraces of rock, crags of rock—ten thousand strangely carved forms; rocks everywhere, and no vegetation, no soil, no sand. In long, gentle curves the river winds about these rocks.
Canyons of the Colorada (1895)