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

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.

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

The connection between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary.

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.

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