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  Quotes by Hayakawa, S. I.




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"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."

Hayakawa, S. I. on failure
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"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."

Hayakawa, S. I. on america    Share

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"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."

Hayakawa, S. I. on life
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"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."

Hayakawa, S. I. on self discovery    Share

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"If everybody is rewarded just for being alive, you get the same sort of effect as you do when you reward every student just for being enrolled. You destroy not only education, you destroy society by giving A's to everyone. This is a philosophical consideration that bothers me very much as I sit in the United States Senate and see the great budget allocations going through."

Hayakawa, S. I. on society    Share

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"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."

Hayakawa, S. I. on books - reading
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"I'm going to speak my mind because I have nothing to lose."

Hayakawa, S. I. on truth    Share

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"You guys are both saying the same thing. The only reason you're arguing is because you're using different words. Conversation in a dorm room quoted in Language in Thought and Action,"

Hayakawa, S. I. on conversation    Share

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"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."

Hayakawa, S. I. on culture    Share

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