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
Topics: Usefullness
God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won’t.
—Alfred Korzybski
Topics: Integrity, Friendship, Conscience, Forgiveness
There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.
—Alfred Korzybski
The map is not the territory.
—Alfred Korzybski
Topics: Tourism, Travel
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
Topics: Mathematics
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
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