Alfred Korzybski: Use

Alfred Korzybski was Polish scientist and philosopher. Explore interesting quotes on use.
Alfred Korzybski: 30 quotes2 likes

“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.”

Alfred Korzybski

Source: Manhood of Humanity (1921), p. 133. Chapter: Capitalistic Era.
Context: 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.

“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

Source: Science and Sanity (1933), p. 76.

“There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.”

Alfred Korzybski

“Let us imagine that the aboriginal-original human specimen was one of two brother apes, A and B; they were alike in every respect; both were animal space-binders; but something strange happened to B; he became the first time-binder, a human. … He had thus a new faculty, he belonged to a new dimension; but, of course, he did not realize it; and because he had this new capacity he was able to analyze his brother "A"; he observed "A is my brother; he is an animal; but he is my brother; therefore, I AM AN ANIMAL." This fatal first conclusion, reached by false analogy, by neglecting a fact, has been the chief source of human woe for half a million years and it still survives. … He [then] said to himself, "If I am an animal there is also in me something higher, a spark of some thing supernatural."”

Alfred Korzybski

Source: Manhood of Humanity (1921), p. 67. Chapter: What is Man?

“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

Edition:Institute of General Semantics, 1995, p. 58.
Science and Sanity (1933)