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

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

Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula.

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.

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.

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.

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