42+ Alfred Korzybski Quotes On Religion, Socialism And "general Semantics"

Alfred Korzybski was a Polish-American scientist, philosopher, and polymath. He is best known for developing the field of General Semantics, which is an approach to understanding the relationship between language, thought, and behavior. He is also known for writing the book Science and Sanity, which is considered to be the foundational text of General Semantics. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Alfred Korzybski on love, religion, life.

Top 10 Alfred Korzybski Quotes

1. The map is not the territory.
2. 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.
3. Words don't mean, people mean.
4. There are two ways to slice easily thorugh life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.
5. The map is not the territory... The only usefulness of a map depends on similarity of structure between the empirical world and the map.
6. What we call progress consists in coordinating ideas with realities.
7. God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won't.
8. The present non-aristotelian system is based on fundamental negative premises; namely, the complete denial of 'identity.'
9. 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.
10. Identity is invariably false to facts.

Alfred Korzybski Short Quotes

• Whatever you say about something, it is not.
• Whatever you say it is, is simply what YOU SAY it is.
• We see what we see because we miss all the finer details.
• Who rules our symbols, rules us.
• Any object of thought is both 'more than what we think, and different'.
• To use words to sense reality is like going with a lamp to search for darkness.
• Whatever you may say something is, it is not!
• Second order effects, such as belief in belief, makes fanaticism.
• I think therefore I seem to be.
• A person does what he does because he sees the world as he sees it.

Alfred Korzybski Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

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

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

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

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

Different ‘philosophies’ represent nothing but methods of evaluation, which may lead to empirical mis-evaluation if science and empirical facts are disregarded. — Alfred Korzybski

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

Riches I need not, nor man's empty praise. — Alfred Korzybski

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

Identification makes general sanity and complete adjustment impossible. Training in non-identity plays a therapeutic role with adults. — Alfred Korzybski

As words are not the things we speak about, and structure is the only link between them, structure becomes the only content of knowledge. If we gamble on verbal structures that have no observable empirical structures, such gambling can never give us any structural information about the world. Therefore such verbal structures are structurally obsolete, and if we believe in them, they induce delusions or other semantic disturbances. — Alfred Korzybski

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

It is now no mystery that some quite influential 'philosophers' were 'mentally' ill. — Alfred Korzybski

He who learns and learns and yet does not know what he knows, is one who plows and plows yet never sows. — Alfred Korzybski

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whatever you might say the object "is", well it is not. — Alfred Korzybski

Psycho-galvonic experiments show clearly that every emotion or thought is always connected with some electrical current. — Alfred Korzybski

Life Lessons by Alfred Korzybski

1. Alfred Korzybski taught that we should strive to be aware of the difference between the map and the territory, and that the map is not the territory. This means that we should be aware of how our perceptions of reality can be limited and that we should strive to understand the world as it really is.
2. He also taught that we should strive to be aware of the difference between words and the things they represent, and that words can never fully capture the complexity of reality. This means that we should be aware of the power of language and how it can shape our understanding of the world.
3. Finally, he taught that we should strive to be aware of the difference between words and the feelings they evoke, and that words can never fully capture the complexity