But in due course it became evident that not only a physical situation qua physics, but the meaning of that situation to people, was sometimes a factor, through the behavior of people, in the start of a fire.

Most metaphysical words in Hopi are verbs, not nouns as in European languages.

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

The world that is coming toward us out of time is going to be very much richer in a mental sense because (among other freedoms) we are going to get a modicum of freedom from linguistic frameworks, from familiar mental habits. Anyone who really knows two or more tongues realizes that even that small enlargement of liberty . . . gives him new perspectives, exercizes his soul anew.

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

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

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