Sign
A sign is a representation of an object that implies a connection between itself and its object. A natural sign bears a causal relation to its object—for instance, thunder is a sign of storm. A conventional sign signifies by agreement, as a full stop signifies the end of a sentence. (This is in contrast to a symbol which stands for another thing, as a flag may be a symbol of a nation).
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Famous quotes containing the word sign:
“It is always a sign of an unproductive time when it concerns itself with petty and technical aspects [in philology], and likewise it is a sign of an unproductive person to pursue such trifles.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its object. It stands for that object, not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea, which I have sometimes called the ground of the representamen.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“When politicians and politically minded people pay too much attention to literature, it is a bad sign—a bad sign mostly for literature.... But it is also a bad sign when they don’t want to hear the word mentioned.”
—Italo Calvino (1923–1985)