It is no secret that the fruits of language study are in no sort of relation to the labour spent on teaching and learning them.

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

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.

Impatience translates itself into a desire to have something immediate done about it all, and, as is generally the case with impatience, resolves itself in the easiest way that lies ready to hand.

Language is an anonymous, collective and unconscious art; the result of the creativity of thousands of generations.

Language is the most massive and inclusive art we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious generations.

Cultural anthropology is not valuable because it uncovers the archaic in the psychological sense. It is valuable because it is constantly rediscovering the normal.