"For language is quite peculiarly confronted by an infinite and truly boundless domain, the essence of all that can be thought. It must therefore make infinite use of finite means, and is able to do so through the identity of the power which produces speech and thought."
Wilhelm von Humboldt (1836)
Shifting the focus from thought to literary creation:
"A generative grammar is a finite system of rules that generates an infinite set of sentences."
Noam Chomsky (1965)