General-semantics Quote by Alfred Korzybski

“Once the tyranny of literalness is rejected, all relevant considerations for giving a rational content to the words become operative.”

— Justice Frankfurter

[T]here is a methodological bias in favor of taking natural discourse literally, other things being equal. For example, unless there are clear reasons for…

— Tyler Burge

A proposition is completely logically analyzed if its grammar is made completely clear: no matter what idiom it may be written or expressed in.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

The assertion fallacy is the fallacy of confusing the conditions for the performance of the speech act of assertion with the analysis of the…

— John Searle

We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which…

— A.J. Ayer

Because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips…

— Saint Augustine

“Yes. A language that will at last say what we have to say. For our words no longer correspond to the world. When things…

— Paul Auster

No language exists that cannot be misused... Every Interpretation is hypothetical, for it is a mere attempt to read an unfamiliar text.

— Carl Jung

We are getting into semantics again. If we use words, there is a very grave danger they will be misinterpreted.

— H. R. Haldeman

The meaning of a proposition is the method of its verification.

— Moritz Schlick

“Grammar is like the walls and bumpers of a pinball machine. Rhetoric is like the flippers of a pinball machine. You control the flippers.…

— Neal Stephenson

Every error pronounces judgment on itself when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth.

— Lord Acton