Benjamin Lee Whorf

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

Language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is itself the shaper of ideas, the program and guide for the individual's mental activity, for his analysis of observations, for his synthesis of his total 'cognitive 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 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, the program and guide for the individual's mental activity, for his analysis of observations, for his synthesis of his total 'cognitive world.'

From this fact proceeds what I have called the 'linguistic relativity principle,' which means, in informal terms, that 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.

Thinking is a matter of language.

Language is the best show man puts on.

The world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has been organized in a certain way by our minds—and this largely by the linguistic tools in our minds.

No individual is free to describe nature with absolute impartiality but is constrained to certain modes of interpretation even while he thinks himself most free.

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.

The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds.

The linguistic relativity principle, in its strong form, suggests that language determines thought.

The linguistic relativity principle, in its weak form, suggests that language influences thought.

Language is the most massive and inclusive art we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious generations.

The structure of a human language is not merely a vehicle for the expression of thought, but is itself a determinant of thought.

The forms of a person's thoughts are controlled by the laws of grammar of the language he speaks.

We are all of us, willy-nilly, in the grip of the linguistic patterns of our culture.

The world is not a given, but a construct, and language is the primary tool of construction.

The phenomena of language are, in the last analysis, the phenomena of culture.

Language is not an inert instrument but an active force, shaping our perception and understanding of reality.