[...] languages manifest a constant effort to connect heterogeneous materials in such a manner as to offer to the ear or eye one perfect whole, like a statue executed by a skilful artist, that wears the appearance of a figure hewn out of one piece of marble.
- Bopp (1820), a pag.60

[…] languages are very seldom capable of expressing fully what they pretend to express; of every thing in nature, of every animal, of every plant, speech can seize only one quality, in order to express the whole by it […]. It is gratifying to observe, how with apparently few means, by a wise employment of them, languages succeed to convey in an unequivocal manner, an immense number of ideas. But, as language is incapable of expressing all qualities, even of material things, by one word; being obliged to indicate one quality only; how could it be constantly possible fully to convey the finer shades of modal and temporal meaning? And if languages here likewise bend to the necessity of sometimes expressing a part, how can the philologist always determine with certainty, what part is expressed, and what supplied by the usage of language?
- Bopp (1820), a pag.26-27

Languages sometimes have unfortunately taken just the reverse course of what the grammarians have thought proper to assign them.
- Bopp (1820), a pag.39