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.

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Language furnishes the best proof that a law accepted by a community is a thing that is tolerated and not a rule to which all freely consent.

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The connection between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary.

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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.

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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.

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Of all social institutions language is least amenable to initiative. It blends with the life of society, and the latter, inert by nature, is a prime conservative force.

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Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass.

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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.

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The critical principle demanded an examination, for instance, of the contribution of different periods, thus to some extent embarking on historical linguistics.

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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.

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