Ferdinand de Saussure Quotes

We live at the level of our language. Whatever we can articulate we can imagine or understand or explore.

Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.

People like to say, 'What do you mean exactly?' I would answer, 'I mean, but not exactly.'

When we use terms we get confused, yet we have no other way.

Language is a nice way to remember things.

Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.

Language is not only the vehicle of thought, it is a great and efficient instrument in thinking.

Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.

Speech is external thought, and thought internal speech.

Language is to the mind more than light is to the eye.

Man can no more think without words than see without light.

Metaphors are fine if they aid understanding, but sometimes they get in the way.

If intelligence is the triumph of life, the spoken word is the marvellous means by which this intelligence is manifested.

Real thinking is possible only in the light of genuine language, no matter how limited, how primitive.

Language, as symbol, determines much of the nature and quality of our experience.

The communication of ideas requires a similitude of thought and language . . .

Speech is the index of the mind.

Language is the light of the mind

He who writes badly thinks badly

Writing crystallizes thought and thought produces action.

Words are but the signs of ideas.

Paper and ink are all but trash, if I cannot find the thought which the writer did think.

Words let us say the things we want to say and also things we would be better off not having said. They let us know the things we need to know, and also things we wish we didn't.

Words are how people think. When you misuse words, you diminish your ability to think clearly and truthfully.

Language cares.