Skip to content

There is a case cited by Korzybski in Science and Sanity of a man who suffered from hay fever whenever there were roses in the room. In an experiment, a bunch of roses was produced unexpectedly in front of him, and he immediately had a violent attack of hay fever, despite the fact that the "roses" in this case were made of paper.

— S. I. Hayakawa Language in Thought and Action (1949)

Another quote →

More quotes by S. I. Hayakawa

With words woven into almost every detail of his life, it seems amazing that Mr. Mets' thinking on the subject of language should be so limited.

Language in Thought and Action (1949)

We live in a highly competitive society, each of us trying to outdo the other in wealth, in popularity or social prestige, in dress, in scholastic grades or golf scores. [...] One is often tempted to say that conflict, rather than cooperation, is the great governing principle of human life.

Language in Thought and Action (1949)

We select our furniture to serve as visible symbols of our taste, wealth, and social position. We often choose our residences on the basis of a feeling that it "looks well" to have a "good address." We trade in perfectly good cars for later models, not always to get better transportation, but to give evidence to the community that we can afford it.2

Language in Thought and Action (1949)

All S. I. Hayakawa quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: S. I. Hayakawa (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.