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Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.

— Edward Sapir Language (1921)

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Communication

More quotes by Edward Sapir

Cultural anthropology is not valuable because it uncovers the archaic in the psychological sense. It is valuable because it is constantly rediscovering the normal.

Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry (1932)

Fashion is custom in the guise of departure from custom.

Fashion (1931)

It would be naïve to imagine that any analysis of experience is dependent on pattern expressed in language.

Getting down to brass tacks, how in the Hell are you going to explain general American n- 'I' except genetically?

Human beings do not wish to be modest; they want to be as expressive — that is, as immodest — as fear allows; fashion helps them solve that paradoxical problem.

Fashion (1931)

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Strength of creative writing lies in the skill of handling words and articulating artistic expression of feelings.”

Suman Pokhrel

An entire mythology is stored within our language.

Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993)

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.

George Eliot

Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth,
When thought is speech, and speech is truth.

Walter Scott Marmion (1808)

Attribution

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