[…] every item of knowledge and of self-command that it [mind] conquers it fixes in assured possession by means of language; and it is always reaching out for more knowledge, and gaining additional control of its powers [...] It is […] always at work under the surface of speech, recasting and amending the classifications involved in words, acquiring new control of conceptions once faintly grasped and awkwardly wielded, crowding new knowledge into its old terms- all, on the whole, by and with the help of language, and yet in each individual item independently of language […].
- Whitney (1875), Pag. 140

[…] the truth that language is only an instrumentality, and the mind the force that uses it […] the mind, which in all its employment of speech implies a great deal more than it expresses, is able to do a high quality of work with only the scantiest hints of expression, catching from the connection and from position the shades of meaning and the modes of relation which it needs.
- Whitney (1875), Pag. 238

The mind not only has a wonderful facility in catching resemblances and turning them to account, but it takes a real creative pleasure in the exercise, and derives from it desirable variety and liveliness of style.
- Whitney (1875), Pag. 112

The mind not only remodels and sharpens its old instruments, but also makes its new ones as it works on.
- Whitney (1875), Pag. 140