The business, task or object of the scientific study of languages will if possible be 1) to trace the history of all known languages. Naturally this is possible only to a very limited extent and for very few languages.

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

A language presupposes that all the individual users possess the organs.

The ultimate law of language is, dare we say, that nothing can ever reside in a single term. This is a direct consequence of the fact that linguistic signs are unrelated to what they designate and that, therefore, 'a' cannot designate anything without the the aid of 'b' and vice versa, or, in other words, that both have value only by the difference between them.

It is one of the aims of linguistics to define itself, to recognise what belongs within its domain. In those cases where it relies upon psychology, it will do so indirectly, remaining independent.

The connection between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary.

Language furnishes the best proof that a law accepted by a community is a thing that is tolerated and not a rule to which all freely consent.