We see what we see because we miss all the finer details.
- Alfred Korzybski

3 Questions: "What?"........."So what?"........."Now what?"
- Coro wisdom

"The world we have created today as a result of our thinking thus far has problems which cannot be solved by thinking the way we thought when we created them."
- Albert Einstein

"The aim of education is the condition of suspended judgment on everything."
- George Santayana

"If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is no barking dog to be tethered on a 10-foot chain."
- Adlai Stevenson

"Teaching and learning that lead to no significant change in behavior are practically worthless."
– Irving Lee

"Learning to un-learn to learn, for me, best describes the process of learning the discipline theoretically (verbally) and organismically."
– M. Kendig

"Learning is the gradual replacement of fantasy with fact."
- Gifford Pinchot

"The trouble with people is not so much with their ignorance as it is with their knowing so many things that are not so."
- William Alanson White

"You can't no more teach what you ain't learned than you can come from where you ain't been."
- Mark Twain

"A person does what he does because he sees the world as he sees it."
- Alfred Korzybski

"You can't step into the same river twice."
- Heraclitus

"All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions."
- Leonardo da Vinci

"Happiness is not something that happens….It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them."
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"We are always getting to live, but never living."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"How we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depend directly on how the mind filters and interprets everyday experiences."
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"God may forgive your sins. But your nervous system won't."
- Alfred Korzybski

"The self explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes an explorer of everything else."
- Elias Canetti

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
- Albert Einstein

"Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits."
- Mark Twain

"Time is but the stream I go fishing in."
- Henry David Thoreau

"It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and only lukewarm defenders among those who may do well under the new."
- Machiavelli

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
- George Bernard Shaw

"To progress, man must re-make himself, and he cannot re-make himself without suffering. For he is both the marble and the sculptor."
- Alexis Carrel

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."
- Elvis Costello

Institute of General Semantics

›

Bill Petkanas Appointed As ETC Editor

The Board of Trustees is pleased to announce the appointment of Bill Petkanas BA, PhD to the position of Editor of ETC: A Review of General Semantics, effective July 15, 2008.

Read more about Bill Petkanas
in Recent News >>

Lance Strate Appointed As Executive Director

The Board of Trustees is pleased to announce the appointment of Lance Strate BA, MA, PhD to the position of Executive Director of the Institute of General Semantics, effective March 15, 2008.

Read more about Lance Strate
in Recent News >>

Please Join Us

The Institute of General Semantics
56th Alfred Korzybski Memorial
Dinner & Lecture
Friday, November 14, 2008, 6PM
at the Princeton Club,
15 West 43rd Street, NYC

DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF

“Playing the Future:
Towards a Creative Society”

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Celebrating 70 Years

The following silent film is of the '48 seminar. ___________________________________

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The worlds we manage to get inside our heads are mostly worlds of words.
Wendell Johnson

The trouble with people is not so much with their ignorance as it is with their knowing so many things that are not so.
William Alanson White

You can't no more teach what you ain't learned than you can come from where you ain't been.
Mark Twain

We see the world as 'we' are, not as 'it' is; because it is the "I" behind the 'eye' that does the seeing.
Anais Nin

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
Marcel Proust

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.
Leonardo da Vinci

To a mouse, cheese is cheese. That's why mousetraps work.
Wendell Johnson

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Albert Einstein

We discriminate against people to the degree we fail to distinguish between them.
Irving J. Lee

56th Alfred Korzybski Memorial Dinner and Lecture

Please Join Us

The Institute of General Semantics
56th Alfred Korzybski Memorial
Dinner & Lecture
Friday, November 14, 2008, 6PM
at the Princeton Club
15 West 43rd Street, NYC

DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF

“Playing the Future:
Towards a Creative Society”

General Semantics

Improve Your Day-to-Day Activities, Interactions, and Relationships

General Semantics ... it's not what you think. It's how you think ... how you feel ... what you see ... what you hear ... it's what you do.

	For an overview of General Semantics in French, click here.
	For an overview of General Semantics in Spanish, click here.

General Semantics (or GS) can be referred to as a general system of evaluation and awareness. It provides a systematic methodology to understand how you relate to the world around you, how you react to this world, how you react to your reactions, and how you may adjust your behavior accordingly.

Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950)

How is it that humans have progressed so rapidly in science, mathematics, and engineering, yet we continue to exhibit behaviors that result in misunderstanding, suspicion, bigotry,hatred, and even violence in our dealings with other people and with other cultures?

Alfred Korzybski pursued this question as an engineer, military officer, and extraordinary observer of human behavior.

IGS Mission

The Institute of General Semantics (IGS) promotes a scientific approach to understanding human behavior, especially that related to symbol systems and language, and the application of proven principles that guide advancements in critical thinking, rational behavior, and general sanity. The Institute endeavors to achieve this mission through:

Publications - IGS publishes ETC: A Review of General Semantics (a quarterly journal), General Semantics Bulletin (an annual yearbook), and Time-Bindings (a quarterly newsletter).

Programs & Publications

The Institute of General Semantics hosts lectures, conferences, and seminar-workshops. IGS also publishes journals, bulletins, newsletters, and books.

For a listing of IGS publications, please click here.

For a listing of IGS programs, please click here.

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The Institute of General Semantics is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation deriving its funding from membership donations, seminar and lecture tuitions, and private gifts. Donations are tax deductible as the law allows.