Language is a living thing. It must survive in men's minds and on their tongues if it survives at all.

If language is intimately related to being human, then when we study language we are, to a remarkable degree, studying human nature.

Amoebas, once they have themselves well pulled in two, go their ways-they practice divorce, but no remarriage.

Grammar is not a set of rules; it is something inherent in the language, and language cannot exist without it. It can be discovered, but not invented.

An amoeba is a formless thing which takes many shapes. It moves by thrusting out an arm, and flowing into the arm. It multiplies by pulling itself in two, without permanently diminishing the original. So with words. A meaning may develop on the periphery of the body of meanings associated with a word, and shortly this tentacle-meaning has grown to such proportions that it dwarfs all other meanings.

Babies and language are the essential ingredients of civilization, and speakers of language no more know where it came from than babies know where they come from.

Civilization could not exist until there was written language, because without written language no generation could bequeath to succeeding generations anything but its simpler findings.