National languages are all huge systems of vested interests which sullenly resist critical inquiry.

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

We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.

Fashion is custom in the guise of departure from custom

Nonverbal communication is an elaborate secret code that is written nowhere, known by none, and understood by all.

In a sense, every form of expression is imposed upon one by social factors, one's own language above all.

A logical analysis of reflexive usages in French shows, however, that this simplicity is an illusion and that, so far from helping the foreigner, it is more calculated to bother him.