A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas...
Ferdinand de SaussureThe first of these phases is that of grammar, invented by the Greeks and carried on unchanged by the French. It never had any philosophical view of a language as such.
Ferdinand de SaussureLinguistics will have to recognise laws operating universally in language, and in a strictly rational manner, separating general phenomena from those restricted to one branch of languages or another.
Ferdinand de SaussureAny psychology of sign systems will be part of social psychology - that is to say, will be exclusively social; it will involve the same psychology as is applicable in the case of languages.
Ferdinand de Saussure