Explore Quotes by Ferdinand De Saussure

The connection between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary.

In the lives of individuals and societies, language is a factor of greater importance than any other. For the study of language to remain solely the business of a handful of specialists would be a quite unacceptable state of affairs.

Written forms obscure our view of language. They are not so much a garment as a disguise.

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.

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.

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.

Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula.

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