95 quotes
The entire universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs.
Essays in Zoosemiotics (1990)
The idea does not belong to the soul; it is the soul that belongs to the idea.
Collected Papers (1931)
Mere imagination would indeed be mere trifling; only no imagination is mere.
Collected Papers (1931)
A sign is in a conjoint relation to the thing denoted and to the mind.
On The Algebra of Logic (1885)
It is important to understand what I mean by semiosis.
Pragmatism (1907)
Every man is fully satisfied that there is such a thing as truth, or he would not ask any question.
Collected Papers (1931)
There always remains a certain amount of arbitrary spontaneity in its action, without which it would be dead.
The Law of Mind (1892)
To "postulate" a proposition is no more than to hope it is true.
The Doctrine of Necessity Examined (1892)
These objects are commonly called points; but to remove all notion of space relations, it may be better to name them monads.
Mathematical Monads (1889)
In the case of colors, there is a tridimensional spread of feelings.
The Law of Mind (1892)
The hypothesis of God is a peculiar one, in that it supposes an infinitely incomprehensible object, although every hypothesis, as such, supposes its object to be truly conceived in the hypothesis.
A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God (1908)
All nature abounds in proofs of other influences than merely mechanical action, even in the physical world.
Pragmatism and Pragmaticism (1903)
Few persons care to study logic, because everybody conceives himself to be proficient enough in the art of reasoning already.
May some future student go over this ground again, and have the leisure to give his results to the world.
The Architecture of Theories (1891)
Unless man have a natural bent in accordance with nature's, he has no chance of understanding nature at all.
A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God (1908)
To say, therefore, that thought cannot happen in an instant, but requires a time, is but another way of saying that every thought must be interpreted in another, or that all thought is in signs.
Collected Papers (1931)
All the monads except as serve as intermediaries for the connections have distinctive designations.
Mathematical Monads (1889)
The actual world cannot be distinguished from a world of imagination by any description. Hence the need of pronoun and indices, and the more complicated the subject the greater the need of them.
On The Algebra of Logic (1885)
All the evolution we know of proceeds from the vague to the definite.
Collected Papers (1931)
Understand me well. My appeal is to observation — observation that each of you must make for himself.
Pragmatism and Pragmaticism (1903)