Kenneth Pike Quotes

"There is no truth without responsibility following in its wake."

"Language is not merely a set of unrelated sounds, clauses, rules, and meanings; it is a total coherent system of these integrating with each other, and with behavior, context, universe of discourse, and observer perspective."

"It is also, I would guess, a universal that in all societies people value respectability granted to them."

"If language did not affect behavior, it could have no meaning."

"The view of the local scene through the eyes of a native participant in that scene is a different window."

"If I were to adopt pure mechanism as a philosophy, there would be no way I could choose to be a scholar."

"Courage to continue comes from deeper sources than outward results."

"This required the development of a view which allowed one to integrate research with belief, thing with person, fact with aesthetics, knowledge with application of knowledge."

"If one refuses to view self as needing integration with God and neighbor, one shrivels like a shrub in the desert."

"Normal social behavior requires that we be able to recognize identities in spite of change. Unless we can do so, there can be no human society as we know it."

"We assume, to begin with, that the individual is at least as complex in his internal structure as the language is which he speaks - otherwise, how could he speak a language which is complex?"

"Fruitful discourse in science or theology requires us to believe that within the contexts of normal discourse there are some true statements."

"Identity in the form of continuity of personality is an extremely important characteristic of the individual."

"Nobody is as good as he thinks he is."

"That a society controls, to a greater or lesser extent, the behavior of its members is a universal; but the methods, the particulars of that control, vary from one culture to another."

"Language is a tool adequate to provide any degree of precision relevant to a particular situation."

"The universe extends beyond the mind of man, and is more complex than the small sample one can study."

"I wanted a theory that would allow one to live outside the office with the same philosophy one uses inside it."

"If the scholar feels that he must know everything about any topic, he is in trouble - and will not publish with a clear conscience."

"When I conform to truth, I do not conform to an abstract principle; I conform to the nature of God."