Alfred Korzybski Quotes

There are all kinds of symbols. Verbal language is only one. Sometimes by opening our mouths, we make dreadful errors. It's often so much nicer just to look at somebody and vibrate.

There is a form of communication that transcends the power of words.

True communication depends upon our being straightforward with one another... But the best way to communicate may be just to sit without saying anything.

When I was a young person I went to the university and I learned a rational language, to think with the left side of the brain. But in the right side of the brain you have intuition and imagination. Words are not the truth; they indicate the way to go, but you need to go alone, in silence. Symbols have a language that kills the words.

You can express a lot of things, a lot of action without speaking.

True creativity often starts where language ends.

There is a world of communication which is not dependent on words.

The body says what words cannot.

There's a lot you can do without words.

Go another step. Try to live one entire day without words at all. Do it not as a law, but as an experiment. Note your feelings of helplessness and excessive dependence upon words to communicate. Try to find new ways to relate to tohers that are not dependent upon words. Enjoy, savor the day. Learn from it.

We should be sensitive to the thread of silence from which the tissue of speech is woven.

How truly language must be regarded as a hindrance to thought, though the necessary instrument of it, we shall clearly perceive on remembering the comparative force with which simple ideas are communicated by signs. To say, "Leave the room," is less expressive than to point to the door. Place a finger on the lips is more forcible than whispering, "Do not speak." A beck of the hand is better than, "Come here." No phrase can convey the idea of surprise so vividly as opening the eyes and raising the eyebrows. A shrug of the shoulders would lose much by translation into words.

Sometimes you have to be silent to be heard.

The highest cannot be spoken; it can only be acted.

The soul answers never by words, but by the thing itself that is inquired after.

I am not interested in communicating something to you, I am interested in communion. Communication means my mind talking to your mind. Communion means I am not a mind, you are not a mind - just your heart melting into my heart, no words.

There's not a lot of talking between actors - either between actors or between actors and directors. People think that they sit in rooms and talk about psychology and motivations. I don't think that happens much.

Behold the hands, how they promise, conjure, appeal, menace, pray, supplicate, refuse, beckon, interrogate, admire, confess, cringe, instruct, command, mock and what not besides, with a variation and multiplication of variation which makes the tongue envious.

We're fascinated by the words--but where we meet is in the silence behind them.

I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings." -from the Fox-

The truth is silent. The truth doesn't come with words. It's something that I just know; it's something that I can feel without words, and it's called silent knowledge.

There is a language that is beyond words. If I can learn to decipher that language without words, I will be able to decipher the world.

In such business Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th’ ignorant More learned than the ears.

If two people are able to communicate their feelings without words you know it's true love

The things one can express with the hand, with the head, with the shoulders!... How many useless and encumbering words then disappear! What economy!