Of all social institutions language is least amenable to initiative. It blends with the life of society, and the latter, inert by nature, is a prime conservative force.

I’m almost never serious, and I’m always too serious. Too deep, too shallow. Too sensitive, too cold hearted. I’m like a collection of paradoxes.

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.

The critical principle demanded an examination, for instance, of the contribution of different periods, thus to some extent embarking on historical linguistics.

Linguistics will have to recognise laws operating universally in language, and in a strictly rational manner, separating general phenomena from those restricted to one branch of languages or another.

Any psychology of sign systems will be part of social psychology - that is to say, will be exclusively social; it will involve the same psychology as is applicable in the case of languages.

Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula.

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

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

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

Deep down inside, each of us knows what our truths are. It is forgivable to lose them...It is unforgivable not to reclaim them.

Little did he know, back then, that the worth of one's faith depended not on how solid and strong it was, but on how many times one would lose it and still be able to get it back.

Anyone can be passionate but it takes real lovers to be silly.

Prior to SunRun, I was headed toward a career in venture capital and then realized I wanted to apply my knowledge of finance more directly to helping change the world.

You need to shelter yourself from the abrasive forces of life that drain you and keep you in a lower state of mind.

Love can conquer everything but reality. Which will win every stinking time.

That's what Samuel Johnson said: "Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think particularly fine, strike it out."

An adventure is a situation where the outcome is not entirely within your control. It is up to fate, in other words

Don’t ever fight with Lisbeth Salander. Her attitude towards the rest of the world is that if someone threatens her with a gun, she’ll get a bigger gun.

I remember when I was 14, I went to race in Hungary, and I went to a concert, and they were playing Bob Marley songs, and I thought, "Wow, this guy is so special." It's Marley every time.