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There are two ways to slice easily thorugh life to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.

Alfred Korzybski

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Alfred Korzybski
Age: 70 †
Born: 1879
Born: July 3
Died: 1950
Died: March 1
Engineer
Linguist
Mathematician
Philosopher
Warszawa
Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski
Everything
Slice
Believe
Easily
Save
Way
Sea
Thinking
Ways
Life
Doubt
Education
Two

More quotes by Alfred Korzybski

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If words are not things, or maps are not the actual territory, then, obviously, the only possible link between the objective world and the linguistic world is found in structure, and structure alone.
Alfred Korzybski
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A person does what he does because he sees the world as he sees it.
Alfred Korzybski
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These 'philosophers', etc., seem unaware, to give a specific example, that by teaching and preaching 'identity', which is empirically non-existent in this actual world, they are neurologically training future generations in the pathological identifications found in the 'mentally' ill or maladjusted.
Alfred Korzybski
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Who rules our symbols, rules us.
Alfred Korzybski
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The present non-aristotelian system is based on fundamental negative premises namely, the complete denial of 'identity.'
Alfred Korzybski
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Two important characteristics of maps should be noticed. A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.
Alfred Korzybski
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What we call progress consists in coordinating ideas with realities.
Alfred Korzybski
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One would have to say in the end everything is a gag, etc because everything is infinitely more than just a gag. The same applies to other is-statements such as Laughter is an instant vacation
Alfred Korzybski
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Any object of thought is both 'more than what we think, and different'.
Alfred Korzybski
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It seems evident that everything which exists in nature, is natural, no matter how simple or complicated a phenomenon it is and on no occasion can the so-called 'supernatural' be anything else than a completely natural law, though it may, at the moment, be above and beyond the present understanding.
Alfred Korzybski
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Second order effects, such as belief in belief, makes fanaticism.
Alfred Korzybski
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Identity is invariably false to facts.
Alfred Korzybski
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Riches I need not, nor man's empty praise.
Alfred Korzybski
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Let us repeat the two crucial negative premises as established firmly by all human experience: (1) Words are not the things we are speaking about and (2) There is no such thing as an object in absolute isolation.
Alfred Korzybski
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It is now no mystery that some quite influential 'philosophers' were 'mentally' ill.
Alfred Korzybski
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Every language having a structure, by the very nature of language, reflects in its own structure that of the world as assumed by those who evolved the language. In other words, we read unconsciously into the world the structure of the language we use.
Alfred Korzybski
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I am the same kind of moron as the rest of you, it's the method that does the work, for me as well as for you.
Alfred Korzybski
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Thus, we see that one of the obvious origins of human disagreement lies in the use of noises for words.
Alfred Korzybski
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The objective level is not words, and cannot be reached by words alone. We must point our finger and be silent, or we will never reach this level.
Alfred Korzybski
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I want to make clear only that words are not the things spoken about, and that there is no such thing as an object in absolute isolation.
Alfred Korzybski