Benjamin Lee Whorf

“Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it.”

“Users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars toward different types of observations and different evaluations of externally similar acts of observation, and hence are not equivalent as observers but must arrive at somewhat different views of the world.”

“We are thus introduced to a new principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated.”

“The forms of a person's thoughts are controlled by inexorable laws of pattern of which he is unconscious. These patterns are the unperceived intricate systematizations of his own language.”

“Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.”

“The background linguistic system (in other words, the grammar) of each language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is itself the shaper of ideas...”

“A change in language can transform our appreciation of the cosmos.”

“We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way—an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language.”

“Segmentation of nature is an aspect of grammar.”

“We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages.”

“The 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.”

“Thinking is a matter of language.”