[...] languages have an inherent tendency to economy of expression. Were this tendency entirely inoperative, there would be no grammar. The fact of grammar, a universal trait of language, is simply a generalized expression of the feeling that analogous concepts and relations are most conveniently symbolized in analogous forms.
- Sapir (1921), a pag.38

Were a language ever completely 'grammatical', it would be a perfect engine of conceptual expression. [...] no language is tyrannically consistent. All grammars leak.
- Sapir (1921), a pag.38

'Man' and 'white' possess an inherent relation to 'woman' and 'black', but it is a relation of conceptual content only and is of no direct interest to grammar.
- Sapir (1921), a pag.101

[...] type or plan or structural 'genius' of the language is something much more fundamental [...] than any single feature of it that we can mention, nor can we gain an adequate idea of its nature by a mere recital of the sundry facts that make up the grammar of the language.
- Sapir (1921), a pag.121