Alfred Korzybski quote: "The affairs of man are conducted by our own, man-made rules and according to man-made theories. 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."

... everything based on arguments involving the ''is'' of identidy and the older el (elementalistic)...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

It is amusing to discover, in the twentieth century, that the quarrels between two lovers, two mathe...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

In the rough, a symbol is a sign that stands for something… Before a noise, etc., may become a sym...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

…a few philosophers really do important work. This applies to the so called ‘critical philosophy...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

We should not be surprised that we find meaningless noises in the foundation of many old ‘philosop...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

Let us repeat the two crucial negative premises as established firmly by all human experience: (1) W...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

It is now no mystery that some quite influential ‘philosophers’ were ‘mentally’ ill.
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

…the analogy between the noises we make when these noises do not symbolize anything which exists, ...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

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

There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

If a psychiatric and scientific inquiry were to be made upon our rulers, mankind would be appalled a...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

If we consider that all we deal with represents constantly changing sub-microscopic, interrelated pr...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

Whatever you say it is, it isn't.
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

There are two ways to slide easily though life: To believe everything, or to doubt everything; both ...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

The map is not the territory.
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

There are two ways to slide easily through life: Namely, to believe everything, or to doubt everythi...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

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

the analogy between the noises we make when these noises do not symbolize anything which exists, a...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

If the map shows a different structure from the territory represented -- for instance, shows the cit...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

If words are not things, or maps are not the actual territory, then, obviously, the only possible li...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

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

A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territo...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

Similarities are read into nature by our nervous system, and so are structurally less fundamental th...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

When we say ‘our rulers’, we mean those who are engaged in the manipulation of symbols. We must ...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

Two important characteristics of maps should be noticed. A map is not the territory it represents, b...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

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

Philosophy in its old form could exist only in the absence of engineering, but with engineering in e...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

Survival of the fittest" in the commonly used animal sense is not a theory or principle for a "time-...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

There are two ways to slice easily thorugh life; to believe everythingor to doubt everything. Both w...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

We humans, through old habits, and because of the inherent structure of human knowledge have a tende...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

From time immemorial, some men supposed to deal in one-valued 'eternal verities'. We called such men...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

Both ignorance and the old metaphysics tend to produce these undesirable nervous effects of reversed...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

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

The reader must be reminded that it takes a good 'mind' to be 'insane'. Morons, imbeciles, and idiot...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

There are several important remarks which can be made about this 'absolute emptiness' and 'absolute ...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

No reflecting reader can deny that the passing off, on an unsuspecting listener, of noises for words...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

If we do not objectify, and feel instinctively and permanently that words are not the things spoken ...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

Different ‘philosophies’ represent nothing but methods of evaluation, which may lead to empirica...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

Whatever we may say will not be the objective level, which remains fundamentally un-speakable. Thus,...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

The abuse of symbolism is like the abuse of food or drink: it makes people ill, and so their reactio...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

Our rulers, who rule our symbols, and so rule a symbolic class of life, impose their own infantilism...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

Moreover, every language having a structure, by the very nature of language, reflects in its own str...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

Ignorance is no excuse when once we know that ignorance is the only possible excuse.
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

The fallacy that Morley in his life of Gladstone asserts to be the greatest affliction of politician...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

The objective level is not words, and cannot be reached by words alone. We must point our finger and...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

Until Einstein (roughly), THE universe of Newton was, for us, THE universe. With Einstein, it became...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

Whatever you say it is, it isn't.
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

There are two ways to slice easily thorugh life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

An individual cannot be considered entirely sane of he is wholly ignorant of scientific method and s...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

An individual cannot be considered entirely sane if he is wholly ignorant of scientific method and s...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI

Feast of Hugh, Carthusian Monk, Bishop of Lincoln, 1200 More things are wrought by prayer Than this...
ALFRED

For me, the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Revenge is sweet and not fattening.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Luck is everything... My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I'm fortunate t...
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Some of our most exquisite murders have been domestic, performed with tenderness in simple, homey pl...
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Even at drama school if there was a part of some eastern European thug it would be me.
ALFRED MOLINA

When I have a camera in my hand, I know no fear.
ALFRED EISENSTAEDT

I have a perfect cure for a sore throat: cut it.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.
ALFRED NOBEL

No experience is a cause of success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences, ...
ALFRED ADLER

Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die
ALFRED TENNYSON

I think it would be a problem if Hollywood was casting British actors only as villains; if that were...
ALFRED MOLINA

My most profound confidence is however based upon the fact that at the head of Germany there stands ...
ALFRED JODL

Major markets are a key factor in advertise and budgeting decisions.
ALFRED AMOROSO

Television is like the American toaster, you push the button and the same thing pops up everytime.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

There is nothing quite so good as burial at sea. It is simple, tidy, and not very incriminating.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Blondes make the best victims. They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time and in others' minds.
ALFRED KAZIN

Dawn was breaking, like the light from another world.
ALFRED JARRY

Too often man handles life as he does the bad weather, He whiles away the time as he waits for it to...
ALFRED POLGAR

It is conventional to call 'monster' any blending of dissonant elements. I call 'monster...
ALFRED JARRY

It needs courage to let our children go, but we are trustees and stewards and have to hand them back...
ALFRED TORRIE

The heart bow'd down by weight of woe, To weakest hope will cling, To thought and impulse whil...
ALFRED BUNN

The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book -- it makes a ...
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Learn all you can from the mistakes of others. You won't have time to make them all yourself.
ALFRED SHEINWOLD

Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
ALFRED TENNYSON

Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering 'it will be happier'...
ALFRED TENNYSON

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.
ALFRED TENNYSON

A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.
ALFRED TENNYSON

We believe that the applause of silence is the only kind that counts.
ALFRED JARRY

It is because the public are a mass -- inert, obtuse, and passive -- that they need to be shaken up ...
ALFRED JARRY

Puns are the highest form of literature.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people s...
ALFRED TENNYSON

Fear isn't so difficult to understand. After all, weren't we all frightened as children? Nothing has...
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his ...
ALFRED TENNYSON

Give them pleasure. The same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

I am a part of all that I have met.
ALFRED TENNYSON

What we learn with pleasure we never forget.
ALFRED MERCIER

These are bagpipes. I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carryin...
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Seeing a murder on television... can help work off one's antagonisms. And if you haven't any antagon...
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

I never said all actors are cattle, what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

You're looking exceptionally ugly tonight, Madam, is it because we have company?
ALFRED JARRY

In the old days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog. Audiences are smarter today. They don't ...
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

I'm not against the police; I'm just afraid of them.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Blind and unwavering undisciplined at all times constitutes the real strength of all free men.
ALFRED JARRY

I try to offset any tendency towards the macabre with humour. As I see it, this is a typically Engli...
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Hope is nature's veil for hiding truth's nakedness.
ALFRED NOBEL

God is the tangential point between zero and infinity.
ALFRED JARRY

The only way to get rid of my fears is to make films about them.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Drama is life with the dull parts cut out of it.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of...
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

That's the penalty we have to pay for our acts of foolishness -- someone else always suffers for the...
ALFRED SUTRO

To keep up even a worthwhile tradition means vitiating the idea behind it which must necessarily be ...
ALFRED JARRY

Television has brought back murder into the home -- where it belongs.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

It is the patriotic duty of every man to lie for his country.
ALFRED ADLER

For my part, I wish all guns with their belongings and everything could be sent to hell, which is th...
ALFRED NOBEL

Man know much more than he understands.
ALFRED ADLER

The truth is often a terrible weapon of aggression. It is possible to lie, and even to murder, for t...
ALFRED ADLER

The test of one's behavior pattern; relationship to society, relationship to one's work, relationshi...
ALFRED ADLER

I'm frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me. That white round thing without any ho...
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

With so much information now online, it is exceptionally easy to simply dive in and drown.
ALFRED GLOSSBRENNER

Exaggerated sensitiveness is an expression of the feeling of inferiority.
ALFRED ADLER

The feeling of inferiority rules the mental life and can be clearly recognized in the sense of incom...
ALFRED ADLER

To be human means to feel inferior.
ALFRED ADLER

We must interpret a bad temper as a sign of inferiority.
ALFRED ADLER

We shall not have succeeded in demolishing everything unless we demolish the ruins as well. But the ...
ALFRED JARRY

Man knows more than he understands.
ALFRED ADLER

The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.
ALFRED ADLER

There is a law that man should love his neighbor as himself. In a few hundred years it should be as ...
ALFRED ADLER

Second to agriculture, humbug is the biggest industry of our age.
ALFRED NOBEL

Tears are the summer showers to the soul.
ALFRED AUSTIN

There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

The truth is often a terrible weapon of aggression. It is possible to lie, and even to murder, with ...
ALFRED ADLER

It was the calm and silent night! Seven hundred years and fifty-three Had Rome been growing up...
ALFRED DOMETT

Capital is that part of wealth which is devoted to obtaining further wealth.
--ALFRED MARSHALL

This award is meaningful because it comes from my fellow dealers in celluloid.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Tears and complaints - the means which I have called water power - can be an extremely useful weapon...
ALFRED ADLER

It is the patriotic duty of every man to lie for his country.
ALFRED ADLER

Neurosis is the natural, logical development of an individual who is comparatively inactive, filled ...
ALFRED ADLER

In the investigation of a neurotic style of life, we must always suspect an opponent, and note who s...
ALFRED ADLER

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
ALFRED ADLER

The feeling of inferiority rules the mental life and can be clearly recognized in the sense of incom...
ALFRED ADLER

War is not the continuation of politics with different means, it is the greatest mass-crime perpetra...
ALFRED ADLER

It is always easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
ALFRED ADLER

The test of one's behavior pattern; relationship to society, relationship to one's work, relations...
ALFRED ADLER

The style of life is a unity because it has grown out of the difficulties of early life and out of t...
ALFRED ADLER

What do you first do when you learn to swim? You make mistakes, do you not? And what happens? You ma...
ALFRED ADLER

Death is really a great blessing for humanity without it there could be no real progress. People who...
ALFRED ADLER

Exaggerated sensitiveness is an expression of the feeling of inferiority.
ALFRED ADLER

I learned much more from defeat than I ever learned from winning
ALFRED ADLER

A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt dangerous.
ALFRED ADLER

What do you first do when you learn to swim? You make mistakes, do you not? And what happens? You ma...
ALFRED ADLER

There is no such thing as talent. There is pressure.
ALFRED ADLER

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
ALFRED ADLER

All failures - neurotics, psychotics, criminals, drunkards, problem children, suicides, perverts, an...
ALFRED ADLER

I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls, With vassals and serfs at my side, And of all who assem...
ALFRED BUNN

We believe that the applause of silence is the only kind that counts.
ALFRED JARRY

Applause that comes thundering with such force you might think the audience merely suffers the music...
ALFRED JARRY

If I didn't have this affliction, I would be the first. As a rule the if-clause contains an unfulfil...
ALFRED ADLER

Every time you get angry, you poison your own system. -Alfred Montapert.
ALFRED MONTAPERT

It is conventional to call monster any blending of dissonant elements. I call monster every original...
ALFRED JARRY

It is easier to fight for our principles than it is to live up to them.
ALFRED ADLER

Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing t...
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

This paperback is very interesting, but I find it will never replace a hardcover book - it makes a v...
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Here lies who, born a man, a grocer died. [Fr., Ne homme--mort epicier.]
ALFRED AUSTIN

The word 'listen' contains the same letters as the word 'silent'.
ALFRED BRENDEL

The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge to c...
ALFRED ADLER

To be a human being means to possess a feeling of inferiority which constantly presses towards its o...
ALFRED ADLER

There is nothing to winning, really. That is, if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, an agile ...
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

We should note that this latter type of shift was successfully amplified to a considerable extent by...
ALFRED KASTLER

On the day when two army corps may mutually annihilate each other in a second, probably all civilize...
ALFRED NOBEL

Do you know that my very first experience as a composer was a 'Concerto for Accordion?'
ALFRED SCHNITTKE

Every individual acts and suffers in accordance with his peculiar teleology, which has all the inevi...
ALFRED ADLER

For me writing biographies is impossible, unless they are brief and concise, and these are, I feel, ...
ALFRED NOBEL

By the time I was seven, I did a sonnet at Shakespeare's Globe theatre for Shakespeare's bir...
ALFRED ENOCH

Meanings are not determined by situations, but we determine ourselves by the meanings we give to sit...
ALFRED ADLER

Television has brought back murder into the home - where it belongs.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.
ALFRED ADLER

One can state, without exaggeration, that the observation of and the search for similarities and dif...
ALFRED NOBEL

Capital is that part of wealth which is devoted to obtaining further wealth.
ALFRED MARSHALL

In the absence of any short term in common use to represent all desirable things, or things that sat...
ALFRED MARSHALL

In every age poets and social reformers have tried to stimulate the people of their own time to a no...
ALFRED MARSHALL

The price of every thing rises and falls from time to time and place to place; and with every such c...
ALFRED MARSHALL

Again, most of the chief distinctions marked by economic terms are differences not of kind but of de...
ALFRED MARSHALL

It is common to distinguish necessaries, comforts, and luxuries; the first class including all thing...
ALFRED MARSHALL

Producer's Surplus is a convenient name for the genus of which the rent of land is the leading s...
ALFRED MARSHALL

And very often the influence exerted on a person's character by the amount of his income is hard...
ALFRED MARSHALL

But if inventions have increased man's power over nature very much, then the real value of money...
ALFRED MARSHALL

Civilized countries generally adopt gold or silver or both as money.
ALFRED MARSHALL

Individual and national rights to wealth rest on the basis of civil and international law, or at lea...
ALFRED MARSHALL

The hope that poverty and ignorance may gradually be extinguished, derives indeed much support from ...
ALFRED MARSHALL

All wealth consists of desirable things; that is, things which satisfy human wants directly or indir...
ALFRED MARSHALL

Material goods consist of useful material things, and of all rights to hold, or use, or derive benef...
ALFRED MARSHALL

All labour is directed towards producing some effect.
ALFRED MARSHALL

In common use almost every word has many shades of meaning, and therefore needs to be interpreted by...
ALFRED MARSHALL

Consumption may be regarded as negative production.
ALFRED MARSHALL

One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time and in others' minds.
ALFRED KAZIN

There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the...
ALFRED AUSTIN

Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are.
ALFRED AUSTIN

Exclusiveness in a garden is a mistake as great as it is in society.
ALFRED AUSTIN

Public opinion is no more than this: what people think that other people think.
ALFRED AUSTIN

The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden i...
ALFRED AUSTIN

I am a misanthrope and yet utterly benevolent, have more than one screw loose yet am a super-idealis...
ALFRED NOBEL

I am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in...
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK

There are many actors who have inspired me: Spencer Tracy for his incredible elegance and, of course...
ALFRED MOLINA

The affairs of man are conducted by our own, man-made rules and according to man-made theories. 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.

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Alfred Korzybski

The affairs of man are conducted by our own, man-made rules and according to man-made theories. 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

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