Quote

Whatever you say about something, it is not.

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
Whatever
Truth
Something

More quotes by 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
God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won't.
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
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
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
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
Identity is invariably false to facts.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
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
Image
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
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
If a psychiatric and scientific inquiry were to be made upon our rulers, mankind would be appalled at the disclosures.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
What we call progress consists in coordinating ideas with realities.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
Whatever you might say the object is, well it is not.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
Any object of thought is both 'more than what we think, and different'.
Alfred Korzybski
Image
The map is not the territory.
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
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
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
Riches I need not, nor man's empty praise.
Alfred Korzybski