Ernst Mach Quote

Language, with its helpmate, conceptual thought, by fixing the essential and rejecting the unessential, constructs its rigid pictures of the fluid world on the plan of a mosaic, at a sacrifice of exactness and fidelity but with a saving of tools and labor.

Translated by Thomas J. McCormack, Popular Scientific Lectures (2nd edition), The Economical Nature of Physical Inquiry (p. 192)