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. – S.I. Hayakawa
Patriotic societies seem to think that the way to educate school children in a democracy is to stage bigger and better flag-saluting. – S.I. Hayakawa
Those terrifying verbal jungles called laws are simply such directives, accumulated, codified, and systematized through the centuries. – S.I. Hayakawa
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.” – S.I. Hayakawa
In winter there is no heat, no light, no noon, evening touches morning, there is fog, and mist, the window is frosted, and you cannot see clearly. The sky is but the mouth of a cave. The whole day is the cave…. Frightful season! Winter changes into stone the water of heaven and the heart of man. – Victor Hugo, Les Misérables: Fantine, translated from French by Chas. E. Wi