Alfred Korzybski Quotes - Page 2

Any object of thought is both 'more than what we think, and different'.

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.

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.

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.

Second order effects, such as belief in belief, makes fanaticism.

Whatever you say about something, it is not.

Thus, we see that one of the obvious origins of human disagreement lies in the use of noises for words.

What we call progress consists in coordinating ideas with realities.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Whatever you may say something is, it is not!

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.

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.

The present non-aristotelian system is based on fundamental negative premises; namely, the complete denial of 'identity.'

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

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

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"

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.