A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas...

Time changes all things; there is no reason why language should escape this universal law

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.

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

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.

Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass.

Written forms obscure our view of language. They are not so much a garment as a disguise.