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… — Ferdinand de Saussure Copy Share Image
Nearly all institutions, it might be said, are based on signs, but these signs do not directly evoke things. — Ferdinand de Saussure Copy Share
In general, the philological movement opened up countless sources relevant to linguistic issues, treating them in quite a different spirit from traditional grammar; for… — Ferdinand de Saussure Copy Share
The ultimate law of language is, dare we say, that nothing can ever reside in a single term. This is a direct consequence of… — Ferdinand de Saussure Copy Share
It is useful to the historian, among others, to be able to see the commonest forms of different phenomena, whether phonetic, morphological or other,… — Ferdinand de Saussure Copy Share
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… — Ferdinand de Saussure Copy Share
A language presupposes that all the individual users possess the organs. — Ferdinand de Saussure Copy Share
Of all social institutions language is least amenable to initiative. It blends with the life of society, and the latter, inert by nature, is… — Ferdinand de Saussure Copy Share
The business, task or object of the scientific study of languages will if possible be 1) to trace the history of all known languages.… — Ferdinand de Saussure Copy Share
The first of these phases is that of grammar, invented by the Greeks and carried on unchanged by the French. It never had any… — Ferdinand de Saussure Copy Share
Written forms obscure our view of language. They are not so much a garment as a disguise. — Ferdinand de Saussure Copy Share
Everyone, left to his own devices, forms an idea about what goes on in language which is very far from the truth. — Ferdinand de Saussure Copy Share
Time changes all things; there is no reason why language should escape this universal law — Ferdinand de Saussure Copy Share
Linguistics will have to recognise laws operating universally in language, and in a strictly rational manner, separating general phenomena from those restricted to one… — Ferdinand de Saussure Copy Share
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. — Ferdinand de Saussure Copy Share
