“How many a genius has perished inarticulate because unable to stand the strain of social conditions where animal standards prevail and "survival of the fittest" means, not survival of the "fittest in time-binding capacity," but survival of the strongest in ruthlessness and guile — in space-binding competition!”

— Alfred Korzybski

Source: Manhood of Humanity (1921), p. 136. Chapter: Capitalistic Era.
Context: Such as contribute most to human progress and human enlightenment — men like Gutenberg, Copernicus, Newton, Leibnitz, Watts, Franklin, Mendeleieff, Pasteur, Sklodowska-Curie, Edison, Steinmetz, Loeb, Dewey, Keyser, Whitehead, Russell, Poincaré, William Benjamin Smith, Gibbs, Einstein, and many others — consume no more bread than the simplest of their fellow mortals. Indeed such men are often in want. How many a genius has perished inarticulate because unable to stand the strain of social conditions where animal standards prevail and "survival of the fittest" means, not survival of the "fittest in time-binding capacity," but survival of the strongest in ruthlessness and guile — in space-binding competition!

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "How many a genius has perished inarticulate because unable to stand the strain of social conditions where animal standa…" by Alfred Korzybski?

Alfred Korzybski 15

Polish scientist and philosopher 1879–1950

Related quotes

“The fittest survive.
What is meant by the fittest?
Not the strongest; not the cleverest —
Weakness and stupidity everywhere survive.
There is no way of determining fitness except in that a thing does survive.
"Fitness," then, is only another name for "survival."”

Charles Fort (1874–1932) American writer

Darwinism:
That survivors survive.
Source: The Book of The Damned (1919), Ch. 3, part 1 at resologist.net

“They say: only the fittest of the fittest shall survive, stay alive!”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Could You Be Loved
Uprising (1979)

“The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

Diary (12 December 1890)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)

“That’s the basis of all politics: it has to be you or me, there’s not enough for both of us. Survival of the fittest.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Buckminster Fuller Talks Politics (1982)

“Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ is really a special case of a more general law of survival of the stable. The universe is populated by stable things.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 2. The replicators

“The 'enduring theme' [in fiction] of male competition and female competition for the hero/survivor has taken us from the fittest surviving to the brink of no one surviving. Sex roles have gone from functional to dysfunctional almost overnight. This is why the enduring theme must be questioned now.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 91.

“In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

This related misquote http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/six-things-darwin-never-said appeared in The Living Clocks (1971) by Ritchie R. Ward.
Misattributed

“It was the elision of the weaker element — the survival of the fittest; and some, indeed very many, mothers must lose their sons that way.”

Zane Grey (1872–1939) American novelist

The Desert of Wheat (1919).

“Whoever claims that economic competition represents "survival of the fittest" in the sense of the law of the jungle, provides the clearest possible evidence of his lack of knowledge of economics.”

George Reisman (1937) American economist

Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (1996)

“That's the trouble with survival of the fittest, isn't it, Dominick? The corpse at your feet. That little inconvenience.”

Wally Lamb book I Know This Much Is True

Source: I Know This Much Is True

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Alfred Korzybski 15

Related quotes

Related topics