No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality.

- Edward Sapir

What fetters the mind and benumbs the spirit is ever the dogged acceptance of absolutes.

- Edward Sapir

Language is an anonymous, collective and unconscious art; the result of the creativity of thousands of generations.

- Edward Sapir

We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretat…

- Edward Sapir

Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the m…

- Edward Sapir

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

- Edward Sapir

In a sense, every form of expression is imposed upon one by social factors, one's own language above all.

- Edward Sapir

Nonverbal communication is an elaborate secret code that is written nowhere, known by none, and understood by all.

- Edward Sapir

The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.

- Edward Sapir