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No one has the last word other than God.

Language has no independent existence apart from the people who use it. It is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end of understanding who you are and what society is like.

'No' is the second shortest word in the English language, but one of the hardest to say.

The most advanced minds as well as the least advanced are obliged to use the same words. If we adopt new words, it will be even more difficult - if not impossible - to make ourselves understood. The new man must therefore express himself in conventional language.

Curiously enough, it seems to be only in describing a mode of language which does not mean what it says that one can actually say what one means.

A word is an arbitrary label - that's the foundation of linguistics. But many people think otherwise. They believe in word magic: that uttering a spell, incantation, curse, or prayer can change the world. Don't snicker: Would you ever say, 'Nothing has gone wrong yet' without looking for wood to knock?

In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.

Finality is not the language of politics.