Linguistic sounds, considered as external, physical phenomena have two aspects, the motor and the acoustic.

Semantics, or the study of meaning, remained undeveloped, while phonetics made rapid progress and even came to occupy the central place in the scientific study of language.

Every linguistic sign is located on two axes: the axis of simultaneity and that of succession.

Now the identification of individual sounds by phonetic observation is an artificial way of proceeding.

What's next? Shall we appoint elephants to teach zoology?

Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.

Bilingualism is for me the fundamental problem of linguistics.

The function of poetry is to point out that the sign is not identical to the referent.

When I speak it is in order to be heard.

A new era in the physiological investigation of linguistic sounds was opened up by X-ray photography.

In poetic language, in which the sign as such takes on an autonomous value, this sound symbolism becomes an actual factor and creates a sort of accompaniment to the signified.

That’s the problem with any ‘simple truth’—it always takes a gaggle of complete idiots or a team of all-knowing geniuses to miss it.

I've reached the age of self-knowledge, so I don't know anything. People who claim that they know something are responsible for most of the fuss in the world.

OK, the rule is, you can [make love to] an elephant if you want to, but if you do you can't cover the circus.

I would just encourage any artist to stay focused, of course keep God first, and just keep working hard. Try to outwork those who you idolize.

He who writes prose builds his temple to Fame in rubble; he who writes verses builds it in granite. - Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton

An educated mind is practiced in the uses of reason, which inevitably leads to a skeptical outlook.

Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerly believe and enthusiastically act upon ... must inevitably come to pass.

That old rock and roll song, "looking for love in all the wrong places," it's true.

I think the golf swing is all about rotation, all about trying to keep the club on plane.

You can't live entirely alone. You have to have some kind of a support system.