Good teachers never say anything. What they do is create the conditions under which learning takes place.
S. I. HayakawaRead
Definitions, contrary to popular opinion, tell us nothing about things. They only describe people's linguistic habits; that is, they tell us what noises people make under what conditions.
Interpretation
Definitions reflect language use rather than the essence of things.
S. I. Hayakawa's quote emphasizes that definitions should not be mistaken for the actual nature of things. Instead, they merely indicate how people have learned to describe their experiences and observations, demonstrating that language shapes our understanding and communication about reality.
In practice
In a philosophy class when discussing the nature of meaning and language.
Good teachers never say anything. What they do is create the conditions under which learning takes place.
If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it.
Learning to write is learning to think. You don't know anything clearly unless you can state it in writing.
Our need for worth is so powerful that whatever we base our identity and value on we essentially 'deify.' We will look to it with all the passion and intensity of worship and devotion, even if we think ourselves as highly irreligious.
If there is one thing clear about the centuries dominated by the factory and the wheel, it is that although the machine can make everything from a spoon to a landing-craft, a natural joy in earthly living is something it never has and never will be able to manufacture.
As for freedom, it will soon cease to exist in any shape or form. Living will depend upon absolute obedience to a strict set of arrangements, which it will no longer be possible to transgress. The air traveler is not free. In the future, life's passengers will be even less so: they will travel through their lives fastened to their (corporate) seats.
We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed! What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired?
The media's power is frail. Without the people's support, it can be shut off with the ease of turning a light switch.
Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers.
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