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There are more ways of killing a cat than drowning it in butter; but this is the sort of thing (as the proverb indicates) we overlook: there are more ways of outraging speech than contradiction merely.

— J. L. Austin How to Do Things with Words (1975)

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More quotes by J. L. Austin

Why should it not be the whole function of a word to denote many things?

Philosophical Papers (1979)

However well equipped our language, it can never be forearmed against all possible cases that may arise and call for description: fact is richer than diction.

Philosophical Papers (1979)

'What is truth?' said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.

It may justly be urged that, properly speaking, what alone has meaning is a sentence.

Philosophical Papers (1979)

Ordinary language blinkers the already feeble imagination.

Philosophical Papers (1979)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: J. L. Austin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.