Quotes About Clarity

Thus, we see that one of the obvious origins of human disagreement lies in the use of noises for words.

Logic is the youth of mathematics, mathematics is the manhood of logic." This brilliant mot of the eminent philosopher of mathematics is no

One of the biggest challenges for a writer of nonfiction is to avoid using too much of his or her hard-won material. A great and enduring book isn't comprehensive; it is highly, even ruthlessly, selective, zeroing in on the most evocative and illustrative moments while dispensing with the clutter that might prevent the high points from resonating to maximum effect.

Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt.

Cleave never to the sunnier side of doubt.

Common sense is genius in homespun.

It is a safe rule to apply that, when a mathematical or philosophical author writes with a misty profundity, he is talking nonsense.

Beware the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.

Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance is the death of knowledge.

the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.

Nobody has a right to speak more clearly than he thinks.

In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from sentimental feeling, as if it were a mist, cloaking the perplexities of fact. Insistence on clarity at all costs is based on sheer superstition as to the mode in which human intelligence functions. Our reasoning grasps at straws for premises and float on gossamer for deductions.

Rationalism is an adventure in the clarification of thought.

Apart from blunt truth, our lives sink decadently amid the perfume of hints and suggestions.

Seek simplicity and distrust it.

To trace the unfamiliar to the familiar ... is to understand.

It is, of course, extremely interesting to look back across the years questioningly, wonderingly, objectively, without detachments, though seeing "objectively" does not necessarily imply seeing truthfully.

It is not necessary to light a candle to the sun.

A story that needs to have words said about it, is a story that does not contain all its own right words. -- Introduction to Varley's "Persistence Of Vision" collection

There is no capital more useful than intellect and wisdom, and there is no indigence more injurious than ignorance and unawareness.

Winter. It made things visible.

Well, truth's like the sun. Look right at it and that's your eyes ruined for life.

He thinks about how, whatever being alive is, with all its pasts and presents and futures, it is most itself in the moments when you surface from a depth of numbness or forgetfulness that you didn't even know you were at, and break the surface.

A man interested in the meaning of words, not one whose interests leave words meaningless.