Quotes About Explanation

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice.

We need not take refuge in supernatural gods to explain our saints and sages and heroes and statesmen, as if to explain our disbelief that mere unaided human beings could be that good or wise.

Myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience, of which the purpose is too deep, going too deep in the blood and soul, for mental explanation or description.

The simplest and most obvious cause which can there be assigned for any phenomena, is probably the true one.

We have always heard it preached, "Love one another". What for? That doctrine was preached, but the explanation is here. Why should I love every one? Because they and I are one. Why should I love my brother? Because he and I are one. There is this oneness; this solidarity of the whole universe. From the lowest worm that crawls under our feet to the highest beings that ever lived – all have various bodies, but are the one Soul.

Her disquiet had no relevance to her life. It arose out of the ground with the smell of the dead leaves ... She compared herself to the ripening acorn that feels through windless autumnal days and nights the increasing pull of the earth below. That explanation was very poetical and suitable. But it did not explain what she felt. She was not wildly anxious either to die or to live; why, then, should she be rent by this anxiety?

This is not an excuse, just an explanation.

Dana nodded. "We like the idea that there's always someone responsible for any given event, because that helps us make sense of the world.

Occam's razor or the law of parsimony, which states that when two theories compete to explain an unknown phenomenon we should err on the side of the simpler explanation.

Another argument, vaguer and even less persuasive, is that gay marriage somehow does harm to heterosexual marriage. I have yet to meet anyone who can explain to me what this means. In what way would allowing same-sex partners to marry diminish the marriages of heterosexual couples?

Generally speaking, the Smritikars never care to explain the why and the how of their dogmas.

I have three degrees in history and only one in law, but since I came back to specialize in constitutional law where history is so essentially a part and an explanation of much that exists, the two disciplines blended very well.

I used to tell my husband that, if he could make me 'understand' something, it would be clear to all the other people in the country.

You'll be fine, just some minor burns and hypothermia, which was kind of hard to explain.

An atheist is a man who looks through a telescope and tries to explain what he can't see.

Markus's mind jumped straight to the most obvious explanation: "Is the president nuking people again?

His job on TV was to explain science to the general public and, as such, to act as a lightning for people who could not accept all the things that science implied about their worldview and their way of life, and who showed a kind of harebrained ingenuity in finding ways to refute it.

When you say 'plugged it in,' could you please tell me everything you plugged into it?" Peter had now dropped, improbably, into a polite, clinical mode, like a customer service rep in a Bangalore cubicle farm.

DFW's writing reflects an attitude that is lovely: a touching, and for the most part well-founded, belief that you can explain anything with words if you work hard enough and show your readers sufficient respect.

I'll be honest with you: as a physicist, I am a hack," he admitted. "I majored in it, yes, but I was never employed in that capacity. But if you cut me I still bleed physicist blood. I'll go to my grave believing that, if magic existed, there's a scientific explanation for it.

His job on TV was to explain science to the general public and, as such, to act as a lightning rod for people who could not accept all the things that science implied about their worldview and their way of life, and who showed a kind of harebrained ingenuity in finding ways to refute it.

What do you mean?" Yul asked.

Sometimes I wish I had an easy answer for why I'm depressed.

I don't really need to explain this to Aaron. He's been demoted