1798

Strange things are said about speaking and writing. Even genuine conversations are but a game of words. The ridiculous mistake, which we ought to marvel at, is that people think they speak of things. But no one knows the peculiarity of language, that it is concerned only with itself. This is the reason why language is such a wonderful and fruitful mystery. If someone speaks only for the sake of speaking, it is then that he really expresses the greatest, most original truths.

— Novalis, Monologue (1798).