"English, once accepted as an international language, is no more secure than French has proved to be as the one and only accepted language of diplomacy or as Latin has proved to be as the international language of science."

--

Source : Edward Sapir, David Goodman Mandelbaum (1970). “Culture, Language and Personality”, p.50, Univ of California Press

Edward Sapir

#Latin Quotes #Language Quotes #Accepted Quotes

“There isn't a damn thing wrong with prayer. During the war I served with a guy who prayed all the time, carried a Bible with him everywhere. We all mocked him to no end. One day, that Bible stopped a bullet, my hand to God, that Bible stopped a bullet. If only he'd had another Bible in front of his face, he'd be alive today.”
“You're pissed I laid it out and you're gonna go nurse your snit”
“It is greed to do all the talking but not to want to listen at all.”
“The supreme satisfaction is to be able to despise one's neighbor and this fact goes far to account for religious intolerance. It is evidently consoling to reflect that the people next door are headed for hell.”
“Particularly for English people, Shakespeare is always at the forefront of both drama and the English language. He's always been there. I can't remember starting school and not learning about him.”
“No man can exactly calculate the capacity of human genius and stupidity, nor the incapacity of will.”
“I think this country would be much better off if we did not have capital punishment.... We cannot ignore the fact that in recent years a disturbing number of inmates on death row have been exonerated.”
“Poets lose half the praise they should have got, Could it be known what they discreetly blot.”

Source : Edmund Waller, Sir John Denham, Wentworth Dillon Earl of Roscommon (1822). “The Poems of Edmund Waller ...”, p.150

You may also like:

Alfred L. Kroeber
Anthropologist
Benjamin Lee Whorf
Ferdinand de Saussure
Franz Boas
Anthropologist
Kenneth Lee Pike
Anthropologist
Leonard Bloomfield
Noam Chomsky
Linguist
Ruth Benedict
Anthropologist
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Philosopher