Quote

The map is not the territory.

Alfred Korzybski

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alfred Korzybski
Age: 70 †
Born: 1879
Born: July 3
Died: 1950
Died: March 1
Engineer
Linguist
Mathematician
Philosopher
Warszawa
Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski
Brainstorming
Maps
Territory
Philosophical
Discovery
Journey
Philosophy

More quotes by Alfred Korzybski

Image
To regard human beings as tools - as instruments - for the use of other human beings is not only unscientific but it is repugnant, stupid and short sighted. Tools are made by man but have not the autonomy of their maker - they have not man's time-binding capacity for initiation, for self-direction, and self-improvement.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
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
Image
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
Image
What we call progress consists in coordinating ideas with realities.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
Whatever you say it is, is simply what YOU SAY it is.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
To use words to sense reality is like going with a lamp to search for darkness.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
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
Image
Whatever you might say the object is, well it is not.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
Whatever you may say something is, it is not!
Alfred Korzybski
Image
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
Image
The map is not the territory... The only usefulness of a map depends on similarity of structure between the empirical world and the map.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
Different ‘philosophies’ represent nothing but methods of evaluation, which may lead to empirical mis-evaluation if science and empirical facts are disregarded.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
The present non-aristotelian system is based on fundamental negative premises namely, the complete denial of 'identity.'
Alfred Korzybski
Image
Whatever you say about something, it is not.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
Identification makes general sanity and complete adjustment impossible. Training in non-identity plays a therapeutic role with adults.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
Words don't mean, people mean.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
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
Image
There are two ways to slice easily thorugh life to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
He who learns and learns and yet does not know what he knows, is one who plows and plows yet never sows.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
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