J. L. Austin Quotes

"Certainly ordinary language has no claim to be the last word, if there is such a thing."
- J. L. Austin
(Related: Language, Word)

"Going back into the history of a word, very often into Latin, we come back pretty commonly to pictures or models of how things happen or are done."
- J. L. Austin
(Related: History, Pretty, Word)

"In the one defence, briefly, we accept responsibility but deny that it was bad: in the other, we admit that it was bad but don't accept full, or even any, responsibility."
- J. L. Austin
(Related: Responsibility)

"Infelicity is an ill to which all acts are heir which have the general character of ritual or ceremonial, all conventional acts."
- J. L. Austin
(Related: Character, Heir, Ritual)

"Sentences are not as such either true or false."
- J. L. Austin

"There are more ways of outraging speech than contradiction merely."
- J. L. Austin
(Related: Contradiction, Speech)

"Usually it is uses of words, not words in themselves, that are properly called vague."
- J. L. Austin
(Related: Words)