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.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the distinction between language and reality, suggesting that objects cannot be fully understood in isolation.
Alfred Korzybski's quote highlights the fundamental idea that words and language are merely representations of reality, not the reality itself. He asserts that no object exists in complete isolation from its context and environment, underscoring the interconnectedness of concepts and the limitations of language in expressing the full essence of what is being described.
In practice
In a philosophy class discussing the nature of reality and perception.
As words are not the things we speak about, and structure is the only link between them, structure becomes the only content of knowledge. If we gamble on verbal structures that have no observable empirical structures, such gambling can never give us any structural information about the world. Therefore such verbal structures are structurally obsolete, and if we believe in them, they induce delusions or other semantic disturbances.
To use words to sense reality is like going with a lamp to search for darkness.
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.
Let us repeat the two crucial negative premises as established firmly by all human experience: (1) Words are not the things we are speaking about; and (2) There is no such thing as an object in absolute isolation.
Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, lessens the friction of social contacts. . . . It is only in lies, wholeheartedly and bravely told, that human nature attains through words and speech the forebearance, the nobility, the romance, the idealism, that-being what it is-it falls so short of in fact and in deed.
To swear, except when necessary, is becoming to an honorable man.
Justice is the grammar of things. Mercy is the poetry of things.
Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
The Church is a virgin, the bride of one Spouse, Who is Christ, and this Church does not allow herself to be violated by any error; so that, throughout the whole world there may be for us one uncorruptedness of a single chaste communion.
The experience of the self is always a defeat for the ego.
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