“SPAN ID=Language_that_is> Language, that is to say, is the indispensable mechanism of human life -- of life such as ours that is molded, guided, enriched, and made possible by the accumulation of the past experience of members of our own species. Dogs and cats and chimpanzees do not, so far as we can tell, increase their wisdom, their information, or their control over their environment from one generation to the next. But human beings do. The cultural accomplishment of the ages, the invention of cooking, […] and the discovery of all the arts and sciences come to us as free gifts from the dead. These gifts, which none of us has done anything to earn, offer us not only the opportunity for a richer life than our forebears enjoyed but also the opportunity to add to the sum total of human achievement by our own contributions, however small they may be. </SPAN”

— S. I. Hayakawa , book Language in Thought and Action

Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), The Pooling of Knowledge, p. 13

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S. I. Hayakawa 27

American politician 1906–1992

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Language, that is to say, makes progress possible. </SPAN>
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S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

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“SPAN ID=A_frustrated_or_unhappy_animal> A frustrated or unhappy animal can do relatively little about its tensions. A human being, however, with an extra dimension (the world of symbols) to move around in, not only undergoes experience, but he also symbolizes his experience to himself. Our states of tension--especially the unhappy tensions -- become tolerable as we manage to state what is wrong -- to get it said -- whether to a sympathetic friend, or on paper to a hypothetical sympathetic reader, or even to oneself. If our symbolizations are adequate and sufficiently skillful, our tensions are brought symbolically under control.”

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

To achieve this control, one may employ what Kenneth Burke has called "symbolic strategies" -- that is, ways of reclassifying our experiences so that they are "encompassed" and easier to bear. Whether by processes of "pouring out one's heart" or by "symbolic strategies" or by other means, we may employ symbolizations as mechanisms of relief when the pressures of a situation become intolerable. </SPAN>
Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), Bearing the Unbearable, p. 144-145

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S. I. Hayakawa 27

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