Alfred Korzybski

“The map is not the territory.”

“The word is not the thing.”

“A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.”

“When we say 'my belief' we mean 'my neuro-linguistic, neuro-semantic environment'.”

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

“God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won't.”

“The objective level is not words, and cannot be reached by words alone.”

“If we use a language of a structure which is not similar to the structure of the world, we are bound to mis-evaluate the world.”

“To be sane, we must recognise our beliefs as beliefs.”

“We do not realize what tremendous power the structure of an habitual language has.”

“The first step is not to learn but to unlearn.”

“Human beings can be divided into three classes: those who are immovable, those who are movable, and those who move.”

“Sanity can be defined as the ability to evaluate correctly.”

“Every language having a structure, by the very nature of language, reflects in its own structure that of the world as assumed by those who evolved the language.”

“A language, any language, has at its bottom certain metaphysics, which ascribe, consciously or unconsciously, some sort of structure to this world.”