S. I. Hayakawa Quotes

It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.

We should keep [the Panama Canal]. After all, we stole it fair and square.

It is the individual who knows how little they know about themselves who stands the most reasonable chance of finding out something about themselves before they die.

Learning to write is learning to think. You don't know anything clearly unless you can state it in writing.

In a very real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read.

The meanings of words are not in the words, they are in us.

Language is a unifying instrument which binds people together. When people speak one language they become as one, they become a society.

Bilingualism for the individual is fine, but not for a country.

Good teachers never say anything. What they do is create the conditions under which learning takes place.

You guys are both saying the same thing. The only reason you're arguing is because you're using different words.

If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it.

In the age of television, image becomes more important than substance.

I'm going to speak my mind because I have nothing to lose.

English is the key to full participation in the opportunities of American life.

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.

There is only one thing age can give you, and that is wisdom.

The great thing about the United States is our ability to absorb foreign people and make them a part of us.

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.

The last thing a scientist would do is cling to a map because he inherited it from his grandfather, or because it was used by George Washington or Abraham Lincoln.

McDonalds in Tokyo is a terrible revenge for Pearl Harbor.

The United States is enriched by many cultures, and united by a single common language.

English, our common language, binds our diverse people.

Patriotic societies seem to think that the way to educate school children in a democracy is to stage bigger and better flag-saluting.

Agreement is brought about by changing people's minds - other people's.

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.

Those terrifying verbal jungles called laws are simply such directives, accumulated, codified, and systematized through the centuries.

I have come East to find what the public likes.

Advertising is a symbol-manipulating occupation

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.

My one ambition is to play a hero.

In the age of television image becomes more important than substance.

We should keep the Panama Canal. After all we stole it fair and square.

He's always been something like a star to me