34 Quotes by Ferdinand de Saussure

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.

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.

The connection between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary.

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.

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

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.