Certainly ordinary language has no claim to be the last word, if there is such a thing.

- J. L. Austin

But surely, speaking carefully, we do not sense 'red' and 'blue' any more than 'resemblance' (or 'qualities' any more than 'relations'): we sense som…

- J. L. Austin

There are more ways of killing a cat than drowning it in butter; but this is the sort of thing (as the proverb indicates) we overlook: there are more…

- J. L. Austin

Infelicity is an ill to which all acts are heir which have the general character of ritual or ceremonial, all conventional acts.

- J. L. Austin

It should be quite clear, then, that there are no criteria to be laid down in general for distinguishing the real from the not real.

- J. L. Austin

However well equipped our language, it can never be forearmed against all possible cases that may arise and call for description: fact is richer than…

- J. L. Austin

Usually it is uses of words, not words in themselves, that are properly called vague.

- J. L. Austin

Fact is richer than diction.

- J. L. Austin

In the one defense, briefly, we accept responsibility but deny that it was bad: in the other, we admit that it was bad but don't accept full, or even…

- J. L. Austin