George Lakoff Quotes

• Metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.

  George Lakoff

  Thinking, Everyday, Ordinary

  George Lakoff, Mark Johnson (2008). “Metaphors We Live By”, p.3, University of Chicago Press

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• The mind is inherently embodied.
  Thought is mostly unconscious.
  Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

  George Lakoff

  Philosophy, Medicine, Mind

  George Lakoff, Mark Johnson (1999). “Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought”, p.3, Basic Books

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• Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities.

  George Lakoff

  Reality, Play, People

  George Lakoff, Mark Johnson (2008). “Metaphors We Live By”, p.3, University of Chicago Press

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• Unless you frame yourself, others will frame you — the media, your enemies, your competitors, your well-meaning friends.

  George Lakoff

  Media, Enemy, Wells

  "How to Frame Yourself: A Framing Memo for Occupy Wall Street" by George Lakoff, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 19, 2011.

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• The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.

  George Lakoff

  Essence, Understanding, Kind

  George Lakoff, Mark Johnson (2008). “Metaphors We Live By”, p.5, University of Chicago Press

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• In all aspects of life... we define our reality in terms of metaphors and then proceed to act on the basis of the metaphors. We draw inferences, set goals, make commitments, and execute plans, all on the basis of how we in part structure our experience, consciously and unconsciously, by means of metaphor.

  George Lakoff

  Mean, Commitment, Reality

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• Liberals have a set of folk theories that are fallacious. One of them comes from the Enlightenment, and the assumption is that you are supposed to be logical. They assume all you have to do is tell people the facts and they will reason to the right conclusion. This is utterly ridiculous. Thought is mainly metaphorical. The frames trump all the facts.

  George Lakoff

  People, Political, Enlightenment

  "Why Liberals Lose". Interview with Katy Butler, katybutler.com. December 24, 2003.

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• One of the things cognitive science teaches us is that when people define their very identity by a worldview, or a narrative, or a mode of thought, they are unlikely to change-for the simple reason that it is physically part of their brain, and so many other aspects of their brain structure would also have to change; that change is highly unlikely.

  George Lakoff

  Simple, People, Brain

  George Lakoff (2008). “The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist's Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics”, p.45, Penguin

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• Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.

  George Lakoff

  Thinking, People, Monday Morning

  George Lakoff, Mark Johnson (2008). “Metaphors We Live By”, p.3, University of Chicago Press

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• The Public provides freedom...Individualism begins after the roads are built, after individualists have had an education, after medical research has cured their diseases.

  George Lakoff

  Research, Disease, Medical

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• Most conservatives are conservatives because they think they are morally correct.

  George Lakoff

  Thinking

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• For centuries, we in the West have thought of ourselves as rational animals whose mental capacities transcend our bodily nature. In this traditional view our minds are abstract, logical, unemotionally rational, consciously accessible, and, above all, able to directly fit and represent the world. Language has a special place in thie view of what a human is - it is a privileged, logical symbol system internal to our minds that transparently expresses abstract concepts that are defined in terms of the external world itself.

  George Lakoff

  Animal, Views, Mind

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• You can't understand Twenty-first-Century Politics with an Eighteenth-Century Brain.

  George Lakoff

  Brain, Twenties, Firsts

  George Lakoff (2008). “The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist's Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics”, p.10, Penguin

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• Science is fundamentally a moral enterprise, following the moral imperative to seek the truth.

  George Lakoff

  Moral, Enterprise, Following

  George Lakoff (2006). “Whose Freedom?: The Battle over America's Most Important Idea”, p.56, Macmillan

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• We categorize as we do because we have the brains and bodies we have and because we interact in the world as we do.

  George Lakoff

  Philosophy, Medicine, Brain

  George Lakoff, Mark Johnson (1999). “Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought”, p.18, Basic Books

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• Holding onto and manipulating physical objects is one of the things we learn earliest and do the most. It should not be surprising that object control is the basis of one of the five most fundamental metaphors for our inner life. To control objects, we must learn to control our bodies. We learn both forms of control together. Self-control and object control are inseparable experiences from earliest childhood. It is no surprise that we should have as a metaphor-a primary metaphor-Self Control is Object Control.

  George Lakoff

  Philosophy, Self, Should Have

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• Barack Obama understands what Ronald Reagan learned, which is that people vote not on the basis of issues and policy details, but on the basis of something deeper, namely, what are your values? Are you authentic? Do you say what you believe? Do you communicate with us? And do we identify with you? You don't know what particular issues are going to come up in the future, so you have to depend on someone's values, and whether they are telling you the truth, and whether you can trust them in office. Obama's been running a campaign on that basis.

  George Lakoff

  Running, Believe, People

  Source: truth-out.org

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• If we are to know ourselves, philosophy needs to maintain an ongoing dialogue with the sciences of mind.

  George Lakoff

  Philosophy, Mind, Needs

  George Lakoff, Mark Johnson (1999). “Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought”, p.552, Basic Books

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• For real human beings, the only realism is an embodied realism.

  George Lakoff

  Philosophy, Real, Medicine

  George Lakoff, Mark Johnson (1999). “Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought”, p.26, Basic Books

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• Conservatives say human beings are people who are primarily concerned with self-interest, and that's what they should be concerned with - self-interest and individual responsibility. They shouldn't be paying for anybody else's health care or anything else like that. As a result, government is something that should be absolutely minimal. It's not there for your overall protection and empowerment - it's not there to offer protection against disease or natural disasters or bad products or companies who sell you fallacious mortgages and so on.

  George Lakoff

  Responsibility, People, Empowerment

  Source: truth-out.org

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• One of the reasons that politics lets us down is that we keep comparing it to our ideal narratives, to politics on TV or in the movies, which is tidier and better fits such structures.

  George Lakoff

  Narrative, Tvs, Fit

  George Lakoff (2008). “The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist's Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics”, p.23, Penguin

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• We now know, from the latest research about neurons, that we are hard-wired for empathy. We're hard-wired for cooperation. That is something about what we are as people - what it means to be a human being. And what Barack Obama was addressing was not just race or just the nature of politics. The great speeches address who we are as people, what it means to be a human being.

  George Lakoff

  Mean, People, Empathy

  Source: truth-out.org

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• What Barack Obama calls bipartisanship is not moving to the right, but finding where people who consider themselves conservatives share these fundamental American values. When he talks about union, that's the kind of thing he means. That requires common responsibility. Individual responsibility is one of the hallmarks of conservative thought. In conservative religion, you yourself are responsible for whether you get into heaven. Or with fiscal conservatives, you are the market. It's your individual discipline and market discipline.

  George Lakoff

  Moving, Mean, Responsibility

  Source: truth-out.org

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• If you're a progressive, you can find lots of people who call themselves conservatives, but who agree with you on lots of things. There are people who call themselves conservatives, but who love the land as much as any environmentalist. Progressives share a number of common values with people who call themselves conservatives. Barack Obama has understood that very well. What he calls bipartisanship is not adopting conservative views, but finding where people who consider themselves conservatives share with him and other progressives these fundamental American values.

  George Lakoff

  People, Conservative, Common

  Source: truth-out.org

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• Do we really think that the United States will have the protection of innocent Afghans in mind if it rains terror down on the Afghan infrastructure? We are supposedly fighting them because they immorally killed innocent civilians. That made them evil. If we do the same, are we any less immoral?

  George Lakoff

  Rain, Fighting, Thinking

  "Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate - The Essential Guide for Progressives". Book by George Lakoff, 2004.

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