“We must realize the extent to which it is necessary that our knowledge of language be based on history. Only history can impart to words that degree of precision which we need in order to understand them well.”

—  Michel Bréal

Source: Essai de semantique, 1897, p. 112 ; as cited in: Schaff (1962:16).

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Michel Bréal 10
French philologist 1832–1915

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