Quote

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

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
Objects
Repeats
Words
Established
Experience
Crucial
Two
Absolutes
Human
Absolute
Premises
Humans
Speaking
Firmly
Thing
Object
Repeat
Things
Negative
Isolation

More quotes by Alfred Korzybski

Image
If a psychiatric and scientific inquiry were to be made upon our rulers, mankind would be appalled at the disclosures.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
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.
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
It is amusing to discover, in the twentieth century, that the quarrels between two lovers, two mathematicians, two nations, two economic systems, usually assumed insoluble in a finite period should exhibit one mechanism, the semantic mechanism of identification - the discovery of which makes universal agreement possible, in mathematics and in life.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
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
Image
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
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 think therefore I seem to be.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
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
Image
If all people learned to think in the non Aristotelian manner of quantum mechanics, the world would change so radically that most of what we call stupidity and even a great deal of what we consider insanity might disappear, and the intractable problems of war, poverty and injustice would suddenly seem a great deal closer to solution.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
Words don't mean, people mean.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
Identification makes general sanity and complete adjustment impossible. Training in non-identity plays a therapeutic role with adults.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
Whatever you might say the object is, well it is not.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won't.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
Thus, we see that one of the obvious origins of human disagreement lies in the use of noises for words.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
To use words to sense reality is like going with a lamp to search for darkness.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
Second order effects, such as belief in belief, makes fanaticism.
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
Whatever you say about something, it is not.
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