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'Whatever you might say the object "is", well it is not.'

— Alfred Korzybski

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Knowledge

More quotes by Alfred Korzybski

There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.

Manhood of Humanity (1921)

The only usefulness of a map depends on similarity of structure between the empirical world and the map.

Science and Sanity (1933)

The map is not the territory … The only usefulness of a map depends on similarity of structure between the empirical world and the map.

Science and Sanity (1933)

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.

"Say whatever you choose about the object, and whatever you might say is not it." Or, in other wordsː "Whatever you might say the object "is", well it is not." This negative statement is final, because it is negative.

Science and Sanity (1933)

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You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion.

Julian Assange

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science, and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge.

Albert Pike Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)

Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.

Bertrand Russell

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Alfred Korzybski (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.