Who rules our symbols, rules us.
The objective level is not words, and cannot be reached by words alone. We must point our finger and be silent, or we will never reach this level.
If words are not things, or maps are not the actual territory, then, obviously, the only possible link between the objective world and the linguistic world is found in structure, and structure alone.
God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won’t.
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.
One would have to say “in the end everything is a gag, etc” because everything is infinitely more than just a gag. The same applies to other “is”-statements such as “Laughter is an instant vacation”
Riches I need not, nor man’s empty praise.
Second order effects, such as belief in belief, makes fanaticism.
Identification makes general sanity and complete adjustment impossible. Training in non-identity plays a therapeutic role with adults.
The map is not the territory, the word is not the thing it describes. Whenever the map is confused with the territory, a ‘semantic disturbance’ is set up in the organism. The disturbance continues until the limitation of the map is recognized.
He who learns and learns and yet does not know what he knows, is one who plows and plows yet never sows.
It is a fallacy of the old schools to divide man into parcels, elements, thoughts, emotions, intuitions, etc. All human faculties consist of an interconnected whole.
What we call progress consists in coordinating ideas with realities.
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. In other words, we read unconsciously into the world the structure of the language we use.
It is now no mystery that some quite influential ‘philosophers’ were ‘mentally’ ill.
The present non-aristotelian system is based on fundamental negative premises; namely, the complete denial of ‘identity.’
I want to make clear only that words are not the things spoken about, and that there is no such thing as an object in absolute isolation.
Whatever you say it is, is simply what YOU SAY it is.
To use words to sense reality is like going with a lamp to search for darkness.
Identity is invariably false to facts.
We see what we see because we miss all the finer details.