Explore more quotes by Ferdinand de Saussure

"It is useful to the historian, among others, to be able to see the commonest forms of different phenomena, whether phonetic, morphological or other, and how language lives, carries on and changes over time."

Time, Language

"In fact, from then on scholars engaged in a kind of game of comparing different Indo-European languages with one another, and eventually they could not fail to wonder what exactly these connections showed, and how they should be interpreted in concrete terms."

Fact, Wonder

"Whitney wanted to eradicate the idea that in the case of a language we are dealing with a natural faculty; in fact, social institutions stand opposed to natural institutions."

Creativity, Idea, Fact, Language

"Outside speech, the association that is made in the memory between words having something in common creates different groups, series, families, within which very diverse relations obtain but belonging to a single category: these are associative relations."

Memory, Speech, Words

"The business, task or object of the scientific study of languages will if possible be 1) to trace the history of all known languages. Naturally this is possible only to a very limited extent and for very few languages."

History, Business, Study, Will

"The very special place that a language occupies among institutions is undeniable, but there is much more to be said-, a comparison would tend rather to bring out the differences."

Language,

"Linguistics will have to recognise laws operating universally in language, and in a strictly rational manner, separating general phenomena from those restricted to one branch of languages or another."

Language, Laws, Will

"Any psychology of sign systems will be part of social psychology - that is to say, will be exclusively social; it will involve the same psychology as is applicable in the case of languages."

Language, Psychology, Will

"Henceforth, language studies were no longer directed merely towards correcting grammar."

Language, Grammar

"It is one of the aims of linguistics to define itself, to recognise what belongs within its domain. In those cases where it relies upon psychology, it will do so indirectly, remaining independent."

Language, Psychology, Will

Exlpore more Language quotes

"If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Poet

Language, Man, Tongue

"Proletarian language is dictated by hunger. The poor chew words to fill their bellies."

Theodor Adorno, German Philosopher

Language, Hunger, Poor, Words

"Over the years, I've trained myself to speak using the same language I would use if I were typing: meaning using full sentences in the way that paragraphs and scenes are arranged."

Kevin J. Anderson, American Writer

Language, Meaning, Years

"Usually it is uses of words, not words in themselves, that are properly called vague."

J. L. Austin, English Philosopher

Language, Words

"There are more ways of outraging speech than contradiction merely."

J. L. Austin, English Philosopher

Language, Contradiction, Speech

"Certainly ordinary language has no claim to be the last word, if there is such a thing."

J. L. Austin, English Philosopher

Language, Word

"The finest command of language is often shown by saying nothing."

Roger Babson, American Educator

Language, Nothing, Saying

"Painting is a language which cannot be replaced by another language. I don't know what to say about what I paint, really."

Balthus, French Artist

Language, Painting

"To handle a language skillfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery."

Charles Baudelaire, French Poet

Language, Practice

"Never resist a sentence you like, in which language takes its own pleasure and in which, after having abused it for so long, you are stupefied by its innocence."

Jean Baudrillard, French Sociologist

Language, Innocence, Pleasure