“I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.”

— Samuel Johnson , book A Dictionary of the English Language

Preface http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/preface.html
A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

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Samuel Johnson 362

English writer 1709–1784

Related quotes

“I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.”

Samuel Johnson book A Dictionary of the English Language

Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.
Preface http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/preface.html
A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

“The commerce of minds was necessarily the first commerce in the world, … since before bartering things one must barter signs, and it is necessary therefore that signs be instituted.
There is no market or exchange without language. The first instrument of all commerce is language.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Source: Regards sur le monde actuel [Reflections on the World Today] (1931), p. 166

“Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Boulter's Monument. (Supposed to have been inserted by Dr. Johnson, 1745.)
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Words are men’s daughters, but God’s sons are things.”

Samuel Madden (1686–1765) Irish writer

Boulter's Monument (1745). At Madden's request, the poem was revised for publication by Samuel Johnson, some authorities hold that and that this line was an insertion by Johnson; however Johnson's own account was that he had merely "blotted out" unnecessary lines of the poem. See James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Comprehending an Account of His Studies (1791) p. 175. Compare: "Words are women, deeds are men", George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum.

“A sign is in a conjoint relation to the thing denoted and to the mind.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

On The Algebra of Logic (1885)
Context: Any character or proposition either concerns one subject, two subjects, or a plurality of subjects. For example, one particle has mass, two particles attract one another, a particle revolves about the line joining two others. A fact concerning two subjects is a dual character or relation; but a relation which is a mere combination of two independent facts concerning the two subjects may be called degenerate, just as two lines are called a degenerate conic. In like manner a plural character or conjoint relation is to be called degenerate if it is a mere compound of dual characters.
A sign is in a conjoint relation to the thing denoted and to the mind. If this triple relation is not of a degenerate species, the sign is related to its object only in consequence of a mental association, and depends upon a habit. Such signs are always abstract and general, because habits are general rules to which the organism has become subjected. They are, for the most part, conventional or arbitrary. They include all general words, the main body of speech, and any mode of conveying a judgment. For the sake of brevity I will call them tokens.