Bilingualism is for me the fundamental problem of linguistics.

Semantics, or the study of meaning, remained undeveloped, while phonetics made rapid progress and even came to occupy the central place in the scientific study of language.

Linguistic sounds, considered as external, physical phenomena have two aspects, the motor and the acoustic.

Every linguistic sign is located on two axes: the axis of simultaneity and that of succession.

Now the identification of individual sounds by phonetic observation is an artificial way of proceeding.

What's next? Shall we appoint elephants to teach zoology?

Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.

The function of poetry is to point out that the sign is not identical to the referent.

When I speak it is in order to be heard.

A new era in the physiological investigation of linguistic sounds was opened up by X-ray photography.

In poetic language, in which the sign as such takes on an autonomous value, this sound symbolism becomes an actual factor and creates a sort of accompaniment to the signified.

I just wish insignificance had more stature.

The thrill of terror is passive, masochistic, and implicitly feminine. It is imaginative submission to overwhelming superior force.

Forget fashion, dress for comfort and for ease of getting through security, so no hats, belts or unnecessary accessories.

Oh son, watch the illusory spectacle! All birth and death is projected by delusion, not existing in reality. I am beyond coming and going.

Fortune mends more faults in us than ever reason would be able to do.

Joy is a condition that is experienced, but it is more than a feeling; it is, primarily, a state of mind.

Necessity is the ethnicity of truth.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world.

I had always been affected by films, as well, of course - and great films.

The more you understand how your salvation isn't about your behavior, the more radically your behavior will change.