What fetters the mind and benumbs the spirit is ever the dogged acceptance of absolutes.

No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality.

Cultural anthropology is more and more rapidly getting to realize itself as a strictly historical science.

Human beings do not wish to be modest; they want to be as expressive - that is, as immodest - as fear allows; fashion helps them solve that paradoxical problem.

It would, of course, be hopeless to attempt to crowd into an international language all those local overtones of meaning which are so dear to the heart of the nationalist.

These examples of the lack of simplicity in English and French, all appearances to the contrary, could be multiplied almost without limit and apply to all national languages.

A standard international language should not only be simple, regular, and logical, but also rich and creative.