Alfred Korzybski

Whatever you say it is, it isn't.

Whatever you say it is, it isn't.

There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us read more

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

…a few philosophers really do important work. This applies to the so called ‘critical philosophy’ and to the theory of read more

…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’.

If we consider that all we deal with represents constantly changing sub-microscopic, interrelated processes which are not, and cannot be read more

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 [today’s understanding of the universe] a principle invariably false to facts.

…the analogy between the noises we make when these noises do not symbolize anything which exists, and the worthless checks read more

…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…