#Quote
More Quotes by Ferdinand de Saussure
Nearly all institutions, it might be said, are based on signs, but these signs do not directly evoke things.
Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula.
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.
In the lives of individuals and societies, language is a factor of greater importance than any other. For the study of language to remain solely the business of a handful of specialists would be a quite unacceptable state of affairs.
I’m almost never serious, and I’m always too serious. Too deep, too shallow. Too sensitive, too cold hearted. I’m like a collection of paradoxes.
Written forms obscure our view of language. They are not so much a garment as a disguise.
A language presupposes that all the individual users possess the organs.
It is only since linguistics has become more aware of its object of study, i.e. perceives the whole extent of it, that it is evident that this science can make a contribution to a range of studies that will be of interest to almost anyone.
The ultimate law of language is, dare we say, that nothing can ever reside in a single term. This is a direct consequence of the fact that linguistic signs are unrelated to what they designate and that, therefore, 'a' cannot designate anything without the the aid of 'b' and vice versa, or, in other words, that both have value only by the difference between them.
Everyone, left to his own devices, forms an idea about what goes on in language which is very far from the truth.
