Quote#Speech
I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the…
Quote bySamuel Johnson · 1709–1784
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), Preface.
English (original)
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
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