19th-century Philologist Quotes

Max Müller

Michel Bréal

Victor Klemperer

William Barnes

William Hepworth Thompson

We souls on foot, with foot-folk meet: For we that cannot hope to ride For ease or pride, have fellowship.

He who, though dressed in fine apparel, exercises tranquillity, is quiet, subdued, restrained, chaste, and has ceased to find fault with all other beings, he indeed is an ascetic.

In that second part we propose to investigate how it happens that words, once created and endowed with a certain meaning, extend that meaning or contract it, transfer it from one group of notions on to another, raise its value or lower it, in a word — bring about changes. It is this second part that constitutes semantics, i.e. science of meaning.

A confused state of mind, equally close to sickness and criminality, was for twelve years [of Nazi rule] held to be the greatest virtue.

Victor Klemperer

The waiter roars it through the hall:
"We don't give bread with one fish ball!"

George Martin Lane

We are none of us infallible—not even the youngest of us.

William Hepworth Thompson