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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.

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
Semantic
Class
Achievements
Upon
Symbolic
Use
Symbols
Must
Achievement
Men
Consider
Life
Rule
Rest

More quotes by Alfred Korzybski

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The map is not the territory.
Alfred Korzybski
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To use words to sense reality is like going with a lamp to search for darkness.
Alfred Korzybski
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Whatever you might say the object is, well it is not.
Alfred Korzybski
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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
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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
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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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Different ‘philosophies’ represent nothing but methods of evaluation, which may lead to empirical mis-evaluation if science and empirical facts are disregarded.
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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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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Any object of thought is both 'more than what we think, and different'.
Alfred Korzybski
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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
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Whatever you say about something, it is not.
Alfred Korzybski
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Whatever you say it is, is simply what YOU SAY it is.
Alfred Korzybski
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Second order effects, such as belief in belief, makes fanaticism.
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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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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I think therefore I seem to be.
Alfred Korzybski
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God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won't.
Alfred Korzybski
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Who rules our symbols, rules us.
Alfred Korzybski