Quotations Semantics: Help 2 Understand Thinking Better Now

SemanticsQuotations Listed3D: Daily DoseRelated Pages6 Groups of Topics10 Skills & Topics

Quotations Semantics, Silence, & Words

We’re All Insane! Second Edition explores, explains, and encourages the right use of thinking. It will also help those who seek to understand General Semantics.

Quotations Semantics: Help to understand words and how to use them for contact with reality versus being lost in thought. Enjoy!

“What we cannot speak of, we must pass over in silence.” —Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Dwell always at the silent level.” —Alfred Korzybski

Jainism & Perspective-Taking

Anekāntavāda is a doctrine in Jainism that states that ultimate truth and reality are complex and have multiple aspects. No statement can describe the nature of existence or absolute truth.

Read for the best understanding of why “knowing” is impossible.
Quotations Semantics: This book will help you understand them.

Quotations Semantics: Various Sources

Listed Alphabetically

“A finger points at the moon, but the moon is not at the tip of the finger. Words point at the truth, but the truth is not in words.” —Huineng

“A frog in a well cannot conceive of the ocean.” —Zhuangzi (Zhuang Zhou, Chuang Tzu)

“A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” —Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity, p. 58

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” —William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“A thing is neither better nor worse for having been praised.” ―Marcus Aurelius, Meditations IV.20

“A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.” —Henrik Ibsen

“A verbalist is a person who believes in verbal realities over physical realities except when it comes to personal interests.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Action expresses priorities.” —Mahatma Gandhi

“All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.” —Walter Benjamin

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” —Edgar Allan Poe

“All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.” —Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“Almost all the questions of interest to speculative minds are such as science cannot answer.” —Bertrand Russell

“Always account for the neutral position, or you are missing a large part of the psychology and process.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Always find at least three parts (positive, neutral, negative) to any issue, question, or problem.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.” —Orson Card

“And thus among distinctions made, there are distinctions that cannot be made; among things expounded, there are things that cannot be expounded.” —Chung Tzu

“Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.” —Voltaire

“As was his language, so was his life.” —Seneca

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” —John F. Kennedy

“Be careful how you interpret the world: It is like that.” —Erich Heller, 1911-1990

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” —Greek saying

“Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.” —Buddha

“Better to see the face than to hear the name.” —Zen saying

“Bliss lies in our taste, not in the things themselves; we are happy when we have what we like, not what other people find attractive.” —Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;” —I Peter 1:15

“But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first.” —Matthew 21: 28-31

“By far the best proof is experience.” —Bacon

“Challenge your preconceptions before your preconceptions challenge you.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Cheesecake is not cake but pie. Pie has a crust, and cake does not, and cheesecake has a crust. Pie is all about the filling, and cake is not, and cheesecake is all about the filling. Pie does not focus on flour, but cake focuses on flour, and the crust and filling in good cheesecake contains no flour. Still, since we call cheese-egg pie ‘cheesecake,’ then that is its name despite it being a misnomer.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Common sense is not so common.” —Voltaire

“Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and tomorrow you will arrive there and know them by inhabiting them.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Do not say, ‘It is morning,’ and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name.” —Rabindranath Tagore

“Don’t speak unless you can improve on the silence.” —Spanish proverb

“Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbours, but mischief is in their hearts.” —Psalms 28:3

“Duality does not exist, but only triality.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Dwell always at the silent level.” —Alfred Korzybski

“Even a computer must rely on energy or power (electricity) to complete tasks because directions are insufficient.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.” —Arthur Schopenhauer

“Every way of classifying a thing is but a way of handling it for some particular purpose.” —William James

“Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.” —Samuel Beckett

“‘Everything is relative’ is relative.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Everything that can be said can be said clearly.” —Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.” —Niels Bohr

“Experience is bias.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Experience is not what happens to you; it’s how you interpret what happens to you.” —Aldous Huxley

“Facts are not acts.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Facts can’t feel.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Facts can’t figure.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Facts can’t fix.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.” —Epictetus

“Foolishness always results when the tongue outraces the brain.” —Unknown

“Forget the years, forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless and make it your home.” —Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu)

“Having the idea is not living the reality, of anything.” —Rumi

“He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” —Mark 7:6

“How can it be known that what I call knowing is not really not knowing and what I call not knowing is not really knowing?” —Chung Tzu

“How can people separate ideas from each other if they cannot even separate people from ideas?” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“How strangely will the tools of a tyrant pervert the plain meaning of words.” —Samuel Adams

“I am calling attention just to the main points of these tremendously important matters, which can be understood better by pious meditation than explained by human language.” —Martin Chemnitz

“I can answer your questions better If I am not thinking.” —Wayne Gretzky, In Search of Greatness

“I favor talking about human thinking, feeling, and behaving mainly in terms of verbs, to creating thought avoid-things that exist by themselves, out of our control.” —Albert Ellis

“Identity is invariably false to facts.” —Alfred Korzybski

“‘If this is spirit-reality,’ I said to myself, ‘How is it we’re speaking words and saying names?’” —Rumi

“If you think you understand it, that only shows that you don’t know the first thing about it.” —Niels Bohr

“If you wish to converse with me, define your terms.” —Voltaire

“If your map and reality disagree, your map is wrong.” —US Marine Corps saying

“In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice, they are not.”—unknown (Falsely attributed to Yogi Berra and others, but perhaps it is from Jan van de Snepscheut.)

“It is an immutable law of business that words are words, promises are promises, but only performance is reality.” —Harold S. Geneen, CEO, and President of ITT

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” —Epictetus

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” —Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“Knowing about something is not the same as knowing that event or thing.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Knowledge does not do.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Knowledge does not get it.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Knowledge does not know.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Knowledge has no intelligence.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Knowledge is an addiction, as drink; knowledge does not bring understanding. Knowledge can be taught, but not wisdom; there must be freedom from knowledge for the coming of wisdom.” —J. Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living, First Series, p. 169

“Knowledge is not it.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Label peanuts, not people.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Language does not touch the one who lives in us.” —Rumi

“Make sense, not words.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Men honor what lies within the sphere of their knowledge, but do not realize how dependent they are on what lies beyond it.” —Chung Tzu

“Most people believe they see the world as it is. However, we really see the world as we are.” —Anonymous

“Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.” —Alan Watts

“Nature is the original and ideal impressionistic painter.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Negative thinking is the highest form of intelligence.” —Jiddu Krishnamurti, 1895-1986: Indian philosopher, Commentaries on Living, Second Series, p. 71

“Never judge a cover by its book.”—Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Never trust words. Some people have sugar on their lips but venom in their hearts.” —unknown

“Nothing exists until it is measured.” —Niels Bohr

“Nothing is either clear or unclear except your thinking.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Nothing is more articulate than silence.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Nothing makes sense; only beings make sense.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” —Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900

“Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.” —Woody Allen, Manhattan

“Now I see that going out into the testing ground of men, it is the tongue and not the deed that wins the day.” —Sophocles, Philoctetes

“Now Tao by its very nature can never be defined.” —Chung Tzu

“Once you label me, you negate me.” —Søren Kierkegaard

“Only categories are categories.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.” —Meister Eckhart

“Only words and conventions can isolate us from the entirely undefinable something which is everything.” —Alan Watts

“Our temperament decides the value of everything brought to us by fortune.” —Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“Parts exist only for purposes of figuring and describing, and as we figure the world out, we become confused if we do not remember this all the time.” —Alan Watts

“Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” —Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.” —Proverbs 16:24

“Pointers are not what they point to. Thinking is a pointer.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Practice then from the start to say to every harsh impression, ‘You are an impression, and not at all the thing you appear to be.’ Then examine it and test it by these rules you have, and firstly, and chiefly, by this: whether the impression has to do with the things that are up to us, or those that are not; and if it has to do with the things that are not up to us, be ready to reply, ‘It is nothing to me.’” —Epictetus

“Pro-Palestinians live in a semantic world that does not exist.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7GAg8sWDpI

“Problems only exist in the human mind.” —Anthony de Mello

“Reality is only what is measurable.” —Max Planck

“Revere those things beyond science which really matter and about which it is so difficult to speak.” ―Werner Heisenberg

“Sentimentality and emotionalism have nothing whatsoever to do with love.” —J. Krishnamurti

“Silence is more musical than any song.” —Christina Rossetti

“Some man holdeth his tongue, because he hath not to answer: and some keepeth silence, knowing his time.” —Ecclesiasticus 20:6

“Sounds simple on paper.” —General expression

“Speech by its very nature cannot express the absolute.” —Chung Tzu

“That’s why the philosophers warn us not to be satisfied with mere learning, but to add practice and then training. For as time passes, we forget what we learned and end up doing the opposite, and hold opinions the opposite of what we should.” —Epictetus

“The analysis of error begins with the analysis of language.” —Hans Reichenbach, The Rise of Scientific Philosophy

“The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.” —Kahlil Gibran, The Broken Wings

“The battle plan is not the battle.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched—they must be felt with the heart.” —Helen Keller

“The blueprint is not the building.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The clever use of words does not constitute an effective argument despite its potential for being amusing or witty.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The correct way of living is not found simply by discussing the theory of it. Even without study, you can experience it, but you have to live it.” —Dhammapada: A Proper Life, verse 259

“The description is not the described.” —J. Krishnamurti

“The expressed is not the experienced.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The fact is one thing, and the idea about the fact is another.” —J. Krishnamurti

“The first duty of love is to listen.” —Paul Tillich, 1886-1965

“The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you’ve gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you’ve gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?” —Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu)

“The interpretation is not the interpreted.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” —Ludwig Wittgenstein

“The little word ‘is’ has its tragedies; it marries and identifies different things with the greatest innocence; and yet no two are ever identical, and if therein lies the charm of wedding them and calling them one, therein lies the danger.” —George Santayana, Skepticism and Animal Faith, Introduction to a System of Philosophy, p.71

“The map cannot be the territory; however, a structurally sound map can help one to navigate the territory.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The map is its own territory, not the territory it maps.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The map is not the mapped anymore than the blueprints for a building are that building.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The map is not the territory.” —Alfred Korzybski

“The map is one thing, the territory is another thing, and thoughts about the map and territory are still other things.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The mind’s job is to validate what it thinks.” —Byron Katie

“The moment a man questions the meaning and value of life, he is sick, since objectively neither has any existence; by asking this question, one is merely admitting to a store of unsatisfied libido to which something else must have happened, a kind of fermentation leading to sadness and depression.” —Sigmund Freud

“The most precious things in speech are pauses.” —Ralph Richardson

“The pieces of a chariot are not a chariot.” —Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (39), translated by VJ Henry

“The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.” —B. F. Skinner

“The reality we can put into words is never reality itself.” ―Werner Heisenberg

“The recording is not the recorded.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.” —George Orwell

“The river you see today is gone tomorrow; despite this, you look tomorrow and see it again.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The thought is not anything but the thought.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The thought is not the thing.” —Alfred Korzybski

“The thought is not the thing.” —J. Krishnamurti

“The understanding is not the understood.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The universe is change, life is an opinion.” —Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels.” —Hazrat Inayat Khan

“There are no lines in nature, only areas of color, one against another” —Edouard Manet

“There is no state of mind in which we are directly aware of the table; all our knowledge of the table is really knowledge of truths, and the actual thing which is the table is not, strictly speaking, known to us at all.” —Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy

“There is no thing’ time.’” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“There is nothing permanent except variation.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Therefore that knowledge which stops at what it does not know is the highest knowledge.” —Chung Tzu

“This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.” —Matthew 15:8

“This place is a dream only a sleeper considers it real.” —Rumi

“Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.” —Immanuel Kant

“Thus the greater part of what would commonly pass as knowledge is more or less probable opinion.” —Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy

“Thus the negative perception is the triumph of consciousness.” —Alfred North Whitehead, 1861-1947: British mathematician and philosopher

“To deal with facts, you must be in an egoless state; otherwise, everything you think or say will be an interpretation, not a fact.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.” —Claude Monet

“To think that being righteous is the best one can do and to do one’s utmost to be righteous will, on the contrary, bring many mistakes. The way is in a higher place than righteousness.” ―Tsunetomo Yamamoto, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good.” —Lao Tzu

“We are never as fortunate or unfortunate as we imagine.” —Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“We are sort of a mirror, and mirror only inside us, in our nervous system, what is going on outside of our nervous system.” —Alfred Korzybski

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little lives are rounded with a sleep.” —William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“We are trapped by language to such a degree that every attempt to formulate insight is a play on words.” —Niels Bohr

“We can complain of nothing but ourselves.” —Seneca

“We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.” —Anaïs Nin

“We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” ―Werner Heisenberg

“We know hardly anything adequately, few things a priori, and most things through experience.” ―Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

“We need silence to be able to touch souls.” —Mother Teresa

“We ought not to receive as reasoning any of the observations we make concerning identity, and the relations of time and place; since in none of them the mind can go beyond what is immediately present to the senses.” —David Hume

“We ought to inquire as to what sort of knowledge human reason is capable of attaining before we set about acquiring knowledge of things in particular.” —Rene Descartes

“We say the map is different from the territory. But what is the territory? Operationally, somebody went out with a retina or a measuring stick and made representations which were then put on paper. What is on the paper map is a representation of what was in the retinal representation of the man who made the map; and as you push the question back, what you find is an infinite regress, an infinite series of maps. The territory never gets in at all. … Always, the process of representation will filter it out so that the mental world is only maps of maps, ad infinitum.” —George Bateson

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” —William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“What we cannot speak of, we must pass over in silence.” —Ludwig Wittgenstein

“What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.” —John Ruskin

“What you believe you experience.” —J. Krishnamurti

“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson (paraphrased)

“What you know, you know, what you don’t know, you don’t know. This is true wisdom.” —Confucius

“Whatever it is, it is.” —Anonymous

“Whatever you say something is, is something else.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Whatever you say something is—it is not.” —Alfred Korzybski

“When one has an image about oneself, one is surely insane; one lives in a world of illusion.” —J. Krishnamurti, The Flight of the Eagle, p. 57

“When reading about or studying psychology, see the issues in yourself, in your human nature; else it is just words.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“When thoughts arise, then do all things arise. When thoughts vanish, then do all things vanish.” —Huang Po

“Where is the brain in a tree?” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” —T. S. Eliot

“Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.” —Leonardo da Vinci

“Women understand in a predominantly narrative fashion, whereas men understand in a predominantly abstract fashion.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.” —Friedrich Nietzsche

“Words are wise men’s counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man.” —Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651) pt. 1, ch. 4

“Words, like eyeglasses, blur everything that they do not make more clear.” —Joseph Joubert

“Words are opinion, not fact. Action is the only truth.” ―Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Words can’t help,” often said after someone is dead while someone is apologizing or making excuses for the death.

“Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have a different effect.” —Blaise Pascal

“Words should be weighed, not counted.” —Yiddish proverb

“You’re only a victim to the degree of what your perception allows.” —Shannon L. Alder

“You can be educated beyond sense into verbal realities. Hence, the common criticism heard from the self-educated about the school-educated being without common sense.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“You can call pepper salt, but it will never be salt, and even if you could magically transform pepper into salt, then it would be salt, not pepper.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“You can’t judge a book by its cover.” —Aphorism

“You don’t have time to think on the ice.” —Wayne Gretzky, In Search of Greatness

“Your body does not eliminate poisons by knowing their names. To try to control fear or depression or boredom by calling them names is to resort to superstition of trust in curses and invocations.” —Alan Watts

“Your focus becomes your experience.” —William James

“Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions.” —Marcus Aurelius

“Zen teaches nothing; it merely enables us to wake up and become aware. It does not teach; it points.” —D.T. Suzuki

Read for the best understanding of why “knowing” is impossible.
Quotations Semantics: This book will help you understand them.