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.More Sessue Hayakawa [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

In a 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 live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.More Sessue Hayakawa [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

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.More Sessue Hayakawa [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

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.More Sessue Hayakawa [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

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.More Sessue Hayakawa [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

By the definition accepted in the United States, any person with even a small amount of Negro Blood... is a Negro. Logically, it would be exactly as justifiable to say that any person with even a small amount of white blood is white. Why do they say one rather than the other? Because the former classification suits the convenience of those making the classification. Society, in short, regards as true those systems that produce the desired results. Science seeks only the most generally useful systems of classification; these it regards for the time being, until more useful classifications are invented, as true.More Sessue Hayakawa [01/01/2000 12:01:00]

In the age of television, image becomes more important than substance.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/12/2018 02:03:32]

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.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

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.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

English is the key to full participation in the opportunities of American life.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

Bilingualism for the individual is fine, but not for a country.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

Agreement is brought about by changing people's minds - other people's.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

You guys are both saying the same thing. The only reason you're arguing is because you're using different words.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

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.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

In a very real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

I'm going to speak my mind because I have nothing to lose.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

Good teachers never say anything. What they do is create the conditions under which learning takes place.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

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.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

Few people...have had much training in listening. The training of most oververbalized professional intellectuals is in the opposite direction. Living in a competitive culture, most of us are most of the time chiefly concerned with getting our own views across, and we tend to find other people's speeches a tedious interruption of the flow of our own ideas.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

McDonalds in Tokyo is a terrible revenge for Pearl Harbor.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

Republicans are people who, if you were drowning 50 feet from shore, would throw you a 25-foot rope and tell you to swim the other 25 feet because it would be good for your character. Democrats would throw you a hundred-foot rope and then walk away looking for other good deeds to do.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

We should keep [the Panama Canal]. After all, we stole it fair and square.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

Ever since man began to till the soil and learned not to eat the seed grain but to plant it and wait for harvest, the postponement of gratification has been the basis of a higher standard of living and of civilization.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

There is only one thing age can give you, and that is wisdom.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]

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.More Sessue Hayakawa [03/29/2018 05:03:36]