Linguist Quotes

Big dictionaries are nothing but storerooms with infrequently visited and dusty corners.

Richard W. Bailey

Your beauty was the first that won the place,
And scaled the walls of my undaunted heart,
Which, captive now, pines in a caitive case,
Unkindly met with rigour for desert;–
Yet not the less your servant shall abide,
In spite of rude repulse or silent pride.

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

While we were discussing what could make one happy, I said to him: Sanitas sanitatum et omnia sanitas [Health of healths and everything is health].

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

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.

The nomadic Semite... roves as a herdsman, partaking of Allah's hospitality.

Cyrus H. Gordon

There is only one type of decadence which is dangerous in art and literature, and unfortunately critics seldom scourge it as it deserves: it consists in being conventional and imitative, in tritely expressing cheap and superficial emotions.

The medicine of Sushruta is considerably older than the ninth century; and the grammar of Panini probably precedes Christianity.

My analysis was directed toward purely physical conditions, such as defective wiring, presence of lack of air spaces between metal flues and woodwork, etc., and the results were presented in these terms.

Benjamin Lee Whorf

There are only two reasons for buying a book, after all. Either we intend to read it, in which case most of us find a printed version preferable, or we don't intend to read it, in which case a printed version is absolutely essential.

Geoffrey Nunberg

Who wants to be a linguist must apply consistently linguistic criteria, not tinkering to comply with policy needs, creating the illusion that one stands still in the field of science.

Snježana Kordić

A physical system is just that: a physical system. What is systematized is matter itself, and the processes in which the system is realized are also material. But a biological system is more complex: it is both biological and physical — it is matter with the added component of life; and a social system is more complex still: it is physical, and biological, with the added component of social order, or value. … A semiotic system is still one step further in complexity: it is physical, and biological, and social —and also semiotic: what is being systematized is meaning. In evolutionary terms, it is a system of the fourth order of complexity

Michael Halliday