Alfred Korzybski

Map territory structure world

"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 (1879-1950)

symbol semantic class rule

"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 (1879-1950)

words things map territory link structure

"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."

—Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950)

words mean people

"Words don't mean, people mean."

—Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950)

person do world see

"A person does what he does because he sees the world as he sees it."

—Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950)

psychiatric scientific inquiry rulers disclosure

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

—Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950)

moron method work

"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 (1879-1950)

human experience words things speak object isolation

“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 (1879-1950)

proposition contain word is liguistic fallacy

“Any proposition containing the word "is" creates a linguistic structural confusion which will eventually give birth to serious fallacies.”

—Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950)

progress science engineering misunderstand violence people cultu

"How is it that humans have progressed so rapidly in science, mathematics, and engineering, yet we continue to exhibit behaviors that result in misunderstanding, suspicion, bigotry,hatred, and even violence in our dealings with other people and with other cultures?"

—Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950)