In the lives of individuals and societies, language is a factor of greater importance than any other. For the study of language to remain solely the business of a handful of specialists would be a quite unacceptable state of affairs.

Everyone, left to his own devices, forms an idea about what goes on in language which is very far from the truth.

Nearly all institutions, it might be said, are based on signs, but these signs do not directly evoke things.

Speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other.

Henceforth, language studies were no longer directed merely towards correcting grammar.

Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula.

Of all social institutions language is least amenable to initiative. It blends with the life of society, and the latter, inert by nature, is a prime conservative force.