Those terrifying verbal jungles called laws are simply such directives, accumulated, codified, and systematized through the centuries. – S.I. Hayakawa
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
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
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
A particular face shows determination merely by the turn of the moustache; but the moustache is robbed of all its expression unless it be worn by itself. Accompanied by the other parts of the beard, it loses its originality, it ceases to be a marked characteristic of will or temper. – Charles Blanc, Art in Ornament and Dress, 1875