19th-century Linguist Quotes

Ludoviko Lazaro Zamenhof

Ferdinand de Saussure

Sigrid Undset

Machado de Assis

Ivan Goncharov

Otto Jespersen

Charlotte Mary Yonge

Out of the sighs of one generation are kneaded the hopes of the next.

Machado de Assis

The most difficult step in the study of language is the first step.

Leonard Bloomfield

The law of humanity ought to be composed of the past, the present, and the future, that we bear within us; whoever possesses but one of these terms, has but a fragment of the law of the moral world.

It becomes necessary to realize that the body is not conscious, but we are conscious of the body, also that the mind is not conscious but we are conscious of the mind.

.. a woman can be a woman and a true one without having all her time engrossed by dress and society.

M. Carey Thomas

In English we have noticed twenty-five consonant and about twenty vowel phonemes. Although individual pronunciations may differ, the phonemic habits of the same group or class will be similar. They will make similar use of heterophony. Words not phonetically separated — that is, homophones — may be separated by function or by experiential context

John Rupert Firth

We are not so naive as some think of us; we do not believe that a neutral base will turn men into angels; we know quite well that the people who are evil will still be evil; but we believe that communication and relationships based on a neutral base will at least do away with the great mass of brutality and crimes which are caused not by ill will, but simply by mutual misunderstandings and impositions.

Ludoviko Lazaro Zamenhof

The books of men have their day and grow obsolete. God's word is like Himself, "the same yesterday, today, and forever."

Robert Payne Smith

There is no absolute virtue in iambic pentameter as such.. however well they may be done. There is no immediate virtue to rhythm even. These things are merely a means to an end.

When I looked at the conduct of the whites who were called Christians, and saw them drunk, quarreling, and fighting, cheating the poor Indians, and acting as if there was no God, I was led to think there could be no truth in the white man's religion, and felt inclined to fall back again to my old superstitions.

Chill December brings the sleet, Blazing fire, and Christmas treat.

Pale disease Shall linger by thy side, and thou shalt know Eternal autumn to thy day of death.

God hath made three beautiful things, Birds, and women, and flowers; And he on earth who happy would be Must look with love on all the three; But chiefly, in bright summer hours, He is wise who loves the flowers, And roams the fields with me.

John Stuart Blackie

Refinement is just as much a Christian grace in a man as in a woman; but he is not such a hateful, unsexed creature without it as a woman is.

Charlotte Mary Yonge

Language can…be compared with a sheet of paper: thought is the front and sound the back; one cannot cut the front without cutting the back at the same time.

Ferdinand de Saussure

Learn to commend thy daily acts to God, so shall the dry every-day duties of common life be steps to heaven, and lift they heart hither.

Edward Bouverie Pusey

Yesterday one has wished, to-day one attains the madly longed-for object, and to-morrow one will blush to think that one ever desired it.

If we can't be a great nation in population we can be a great nation in spirit!

It's a good thing when you don't dare do something if you don't think it's right. But it's not good when you think something's not right because you don't dare do it.

Slang is a linguistic luxury, it is a sport, and, like any other sport, something that belongs to the young.