#Quote
More Quotes by Ferdinand de Saussure
Speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other.
Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass.
Written forms obscure our view of language. They are not so much a garment as a disguise.
Nearly all institutions, it might be said, are based on signs, but these signs do not directly evoke things.
A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas.
Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula.
Everyone, left to his own devices, forms an idea about what goes on in language which is very far from the truth.
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.
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.
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.
