To perceive how language works, what pitfalls it conceals, what its possibilities are, is to comprehend a crucial aspect of the complicated business of living the life of a human being.
In a very real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read. It is not true that we have only one life to lead; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.
It is not true we have only one life to love, if we can read, we can live as many lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.
Good teachers never say anything. What they do is create the conditions under which learning takes place.
Agreement is brought about by changing people’s minds – other people’s.
I’m going to speak my mind because I have nothing to lose.
Notice the difference between what happens when a man says to himself, I have failed three times, and what happens when he says, I am a failure.
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.
Advertising is a symbol-manipulating occupation.
I believe we are being dishonest with language minority groups if we tell them they can take full part in American life without learning the English language.
English, our common language, binds our diverse people.
Language is a unifying instrument which binds people together. When people speak one language they become as one, they become a society.
The meanings of words are not in the words, they are in us.
The United States is enriched by many cultures, and united by a single common language.
If I spoke no English, my world would be limited to the Japanese-speaking community, and no matter how talented I was, I could never do business, seek employment or take part in public affairs outside that community.
The great thing about the United States is our ability to absorb foreign people and make them a part of us.
The language we share is at the core of our identity as citizens, and our ticket to full participation in American political life. We can speak any language we want at the dinner table, but English is the language of public discourse, or the marketplace and of the voting booth.
McDonalds in Tokyo is a terrible revenge for Pearl Harbor.
How anybody dresses is indicative of his self-concept. If students are dirty and ragged, it indicates they are not interested in tidying up their intellects either.
We live in a highly competitive society, each of us trying to outdo the other in wealth, in popularity or social prestige, in dress, in scholastic grades or golf scores. One is often tempted to say that conflict, rather than cooperation, is the great governing principle of human life.