Quotes from Alfred Korzybski

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

An individual cannot be considered entirely sane if he is wholly ignorant of scientific method and structure of nature and so retains primitive semantic reactions.

An individual cannot be considered entirely sane of he is wholly ignorant of scientific method and structure of nature and so retains primitive semantic reactions.

The map is not the territory.

God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won't.

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

We should not be surprised that we find meaningless noises in the foundation of many old philosophies, and that from them arise most of the old philosophical fights and arguments.

a few philosophers really do important work. This applies to the so called critical philosophy and to the theory of knowledge or epistemology. This class of workers I call epistemologists to avoid the disagreeable implications of the term philosopher.

In the rough, a symbol is a sign that stands for something Before a noise, etc., may become a symbol, something must exist for the symbol to symbolize.

If a psychiatric and scientific inquiry were to be made upon our rulers, mankind would be appalled at the disclosures.

If we consider that all we deal with represents constantly changing sub-microscopic, interrelated processes which are not, and cannot be identical with themselves, the old dictum that everything is identical with itself becomes in [todays u...

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

If we consider that all we deal with represents constantly changing sub-microscopic, interrelated processes which are not, and cannot be identical with themselves, the old dictum that everything is identical with itself becomes in [todays understanding of the universe] a principle invariably false to facts.

Whatever you say it is, it isn't.

the analogy between the noises we make when these noises do not symbolize anything which exists, and the worthless checks we write when our bank balance is zero

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

Say wharever you choose about the object, and wharever you might say it is not. Or, in other words: wharever you might say the object is, well it is not.

And how much more do we need Korzybski's consciousness of abstracting at a time when so much of our lives are spent absorbed in the highly abstracted and mediated maps rendered by our digital technologies, new media, and online communications?

No reflecting reader can deny that the passing off, on an unsuspecting listener, of noises for words, or symbols, must be classified as a fraud, or that we pass to the other fellow contagious semantic disturbances.

to treat a human being as an animal - as a mere space-binder - because humans have certain animal propensities, is an error of the same type and grossness as to treat a cube as a surface because it has surface properties.

Indeed neither life nor science bothers about "essences"-they leave "essences" to metaphysics, which is neither life nor science.

Until Einstein (roughly), THE universe of Newton was, for us, THE universe. With Einstein, it became A universe. Something similar happen to man. A new 'man' was produced, just as good, certainly contraditory to the old one. THE man became A man, otherwise a 'conceptual construction', one among the infinity of possible ones.

no thought, if it be non-mathematical in spirit, can be trusted, and, although mathematicians sometimes make mistakes, the spirit of mathematics is always right and always sound.

If those who know why and how neglect to act, those who do not know will act, and the world will continue to flounder. The whole history of mankind and especially the present plight of the world show only too sadly how dangerous and expensive it is to have the world governed by those who do not know.