“It is ironic that when the priority is personal safety, the world becomes a very dangerous world. It becomes a world in which everyone is doing things for their own individual best interests. It becomes a society of control, strategy and zero-sum games.”

The Status Of Linguistics As A Science (1929), p. 69 <!-- 1958 edition -->
Context: Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the "real world" is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached … We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.

The Lords and the New Creatures: Poems (1969), The Lords: Notes on Vision

Gilbert Lecture, Princeton University, Feb 21, 2013

explaining why the engineer should not be viewed as a "mere tender of machines", as quoted by [Hugh Richard Slotten, Radio and television regulation, JHU Press, 2000, 080186450X, 62]

Interviews

Part IV, Chapter 21, Environmental Conflict Resolution, p. 310.
The Art and Science of Negotiation (1982)

Speech in the U.S. Senate (2017)
Context: When a leader correctly identifies real hurt and insecurity in our country, and instead of addressing it, goes to look for someone to blame, there is perhaps nothing more devastating to a pluralistic society. Leadership knows that most often a good place to start in assigning blame is to look somewhat closer to home. Leadership knows where the buck stops.Humility helps, character counts. Leadership does not knowingly encourage or feed ugly or debased appetites in us. Leadership lives by the American creed, “E pluribus unum.” From many one. American leadership looks to the world and just as Lincoln did, sees the family of man. Humanity is not a zero sum game. When we have been at our most prosperous, we have been at our most principled, and when we do well, the rest of the world does well.

As quoted in Defy the darkness: A Tale of Courage in the Shadow of Mengele (2000) by Joe Rosenblum and David Kohn, p. 192

John R. Piatt (1969) in: New York Times, September 2, 1969.