“My main aim has been to present Catalan as it is spoken.”

In the preface of the Ensayo (1891)

“Neither the practice of hiking nor the study of language has ever caused me any displeasure. [...] Everyone, especially those of us who are submitted to intellectual disciplines, should practise some sport or other.”

At a Centre Excursionista de Catalunya event, at the end of the 19th century

“I’m a grey man, without ups and downs, without biography.”

To Josep Miracle, during the presentation of Grammar of the Catalan Language (1912)

“My goodness, there are so many Spanish forms! They ought to say so!”

During the presidential address read at the Ateneu Barcelonès (1924-1925 academic year)

“It doesn’t matter whether a word is written one way or another. What matters is that everyone should write it the same way. And now that it seems we can have our own schooling we shouldn’t trouble children with diversity.”

In 1932, to Pau Font de Rubinat

“Our university still needs to be Catalanised.”

During the tribute he was given by the University of Barcelona in 1932

“Work, work every day, because the cultivation of a language can never be abandoned.”

To Josep Maria Corredor, while in exile (1939-1945)

“A writer who scorns or ignores the work of the grammarian is a bad writer and a bad patriot.”

In 1907, at the beginning of his process of organising the standard

“If I’m regarded as some sort of symbol of the Catalan language, I think it was very clear that if I faltered the language would falter. And to me it was obvious that if the language faltered, everything would falter.”

In 1926, when he declined to join the Royal Spanish Academy

“We will have only what we know how to win. We must recognise all our resources and study their possibilities. No have no narrow nationalism. We live facing the world, and if we want full sovereignty for our people it is to improve the quality of our fellow citizens and to strive so that Catalonia, immensely civilised, can offer effective collaboration in the task of improvement and progress of humanity.”

During the inaugural ceremony of Palestra at the Palau de la Música Catalana (1930)

“We want youth to be patriotic, truly Catalan, in a reflective and conscious way, humane and without jingoism of any sort. The Homeland is the Earth and the People, and everything the people can do on the face of this earth: the language, the economy, history, and all the manifestations of the Catalan earth and spirit are the stuff of patriotism.”

During the inaugural ceremony of Palestra at the Palau de la Música Catalana (1930)

“The language is something that evolves, that undergoes certain changes which we don’t notice, but which in the long run make a language different after some years have passed.”

In the notes to Fabra’s classes within the Higher Catalan Course (1934-1935)

“We must never abandon either work or hope.”

During the Catalan Studies Week in Perpinyà (1947)

“Find out the right meaning of a word... and you can use it. Grammarians will study it later on.”

Fabra to Joan Oller