Quotes About Clarity

What good would it do me if truth stood before me, cold and naked, not caring whether I recognized her or not?

On aina arveluttavaa leimata absurdiksi, käsittämättömäksi jokin, minkä joku toinen voi selittää helposti ymmärrettäväksi.

What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I must know…What matters is to find a purpose…to find a truth that is true for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die…This is what my soul thirsts for as the African desert thirsts for water.

As the sea, when it lies calm and deeply transparent, yearns for heaven, so may the pure heart, when it is calm and deeply transparent, yearn for the Good.

Wenn man die Philosophen von der Wirklichkeit reden hört, so ist das oft ebenso irreführend, wie wenn man im Schaufenster eines Trödlers auf einem Schild die Worte liest: Hier wird gerollt. Wollte man mit seiner Wäsche kommen und sie rollen lassen, so wäre man angeführt. Der Schild hängt nur zum Verkauf da.

To be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain understanding must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself…the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.

Jos en tiedä omasta takaa, en tiedä lainkaan.

Wat voor goed zou het me doen als de waarheid voor me stond, koud en naakt, en er niet om gaf of ze door mij werd herkend of niet.

order that you shall act according to it, not that you gain expertise in interpreting it.

In some matters, he said, it is better to be intellectually uncertain rather than superficially sure. This will still leave us with a great deal to be certain about, while maintaining a humility to learn.

If, at the close of business each evening, I myself can understand what I've written, I feel the day hasn't been totally wasted.

History is not tied to slogans and ideals and reform movements. It is to rid ourselves of notions of doctrines and movements and look at the incidents of the past as they actually happened. And this can't happen unless we allow our minds to be cleared of the illusions created by the present.

Being ignorant is truly bliss compared to being misinformed, especially if you're aware of the depths of your own ignorance.

It is worse still to be ignorant of your ignorance.

When you know what you're against you have taken the first step to discovering what you're for.

Straight answers were beyond the powers of Rashid Khalifa, who would never take a short cut if there was a longer, twistier road available.

A figure of speech is a shifty thing; it can be twisted or it can be straight.

The only people who see the whole picture are the ones who step outside the frame.

Be so good as to cease to cast yourself in fictions. Pinch yourself, or slap yourself across the face if that's what it takes, but understand, please, that you are nonfictional, and this is real life.

This is known, and what is not known does not undermine it. This is the scientific way. To be open about the limits of one's knowledge increases public confidence in what one says is known.

To reflect is to regain a little, lost sense of proportion

It matters, it always matters, to name rubbish as rubbish … to do otherwise is to legitimize it. Outside The Whale ( Granta , 1984)

He would dream of discovering a magic optometrist from whom he would purchase a pair of green-tinged spectacles which would correct his regrettable myopia, and after that he would be able to see through the dense, blinding air to the fabulous world beneath.

his curse. "To be thin-skinned, far-sighted, and loose-tongued," he said, "is to feel too sharply, see too clearly, speak too freely. It is to be vulnerable to the world when the world believes itself invulnerable, to understand its mutability when it thinks itself immutable, to sense what's coming before others sense it, to know that the barbarian future is tearing down the gates of the present while others cling to the decadent, hollow past.