[...] the speech element 'house' is the symbol, [...] of a 'concept' [...] of a convenient capsule of thought that embraces thousands of distinct experiences and that is ready to take in thousands more [...]
- Sapir (1921), a pag.13

If the single significant elements of speech are the symbol of concepts, the actual flow of speech may be interpreted as a record of the setting of these concepts into mutual relations.
- Sapir (1921), a pag.13

The birth of a new concept is invariably foreshadowed by a more or less strained or extended use of old linguistic material ; the concept does not attain to individual and independent life until it has found a distinctive linguistic embodiment [...]
- Sapir (1921), a pag.17

Not until we own the symbol do we feel that we hold a key to the immediate knowledge or understand of the concept.
- Sapir (1921), a pag.17

[...] some or all of the [...] concepts [...] may not only be expressed in different form but [...] they may be differently grouped among themselves [...]
- Sapir (1921), a pag.91

[...] there is [...] a constant fading away of the feeling of sensible reality within the main groups of linguistic concepts themselves. In many languages it becomes almost imperative [....] to make various sub-classifications, to segregate [...] the more concrete from the more abstract concepts [...]
- Sapir (1921), a pag.103