Course in General Linguistics

Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula.

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

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

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

For the study of language to remain solely the business of a handful of specialists would be a quite unacceptable state of affairs. In practice, the study of language is in some degree or other the concern of everyone. But a paradoxical consequence of this general interest is that no other subject has fostered more absurd notions, more prejudices, more illusions, or more fantasies. From a psychological point of view, these errors are of interest in themselves. But it is the primary task of the linguist to denounce them, and to eradicate them as completely as possible.