Quote

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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Alfred Korzybski
Age: 70 †
Born: 1879
Born: July 3
Died: 1950
Died: March 1
Engineer
Linguist
Mathematician
Philosopher
Warszawa
Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski
Language
Territory
Found
Objectives
Linguists
Things
Actual
Linguistics
World
Obviously
Linguistic
Structure
Link
Alone
Maps
Possible
Links
Words
Objective

More quotes by Alfred Korzybski

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Psycho-galvonic experiments show clearly that every emotion or thought is always connected with some electrical current.
Alfred Korzybski
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Man's achievements rest upon the use of symbols.... we must consider ourselves as a symbolic, semantic class of life, and those who rule the symbols, rule us.
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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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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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The map is not the territory.
Alfred Korzybski
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Riches I need not, nor man's empty praise.
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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If a psychiatric and scientific inquiry were to be made upon our rulers, mankind would be appalled at the disclosures.
Alfred Korzybski
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Identity is invariably false to facts.
Alfred Korzybski
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Identification makes general sanity and complete adjustment impossible. Training in non-identity plays a therapeutic role with adults.
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God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won't.
Alfred Korzybski
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Whatever you might say the object is, well it is not.
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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The map is not the territory, the word is not the thing it describes. Whenever the map is confused with the territory, a 'semantic disturbance' is set up in the organism. The disturbance continues until the limitation of the map is recognized.
Alfred Korzybski
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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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Any object of thought is both 'more than what we think, and different'.
Alfred Korzybski
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It is a fallacy of the old schools to divide man into parcels, elements, thoughts, emotions, intuitions, etc. All human faculties consist of an interconnected whole.
Alfred Korzybski
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Second order effects, such as belief in belief, makes fanaticism.
Alfred Korzybski
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Mathematics and logic have been proved to be one a fact from which it seems to follow that mathematics may successfully deal with non-quantitative problems in a much broader sense than was suspected to be possible.
Alfred Korzybski
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I think therefore I seem to be.
Alfred Korzybski