Clarity Quotes

Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.

Eloquence must be grounded on the plainest narrative.

The minute you read something and you can't understand it, you can be sure it was written by a lawyer. Then, if you give it to another lawyer to read and he don't know just what it means, then you can be sure it was drawn up by a lawyer. If it's in a few words and is plain, and understandable only one way, it was written by a non-lawyer.

He who cannot describe the problem will never find the solution to that problem.

Instead of always asking yourself how to clear up your mental fog, learn to ask: "Can confusion know anything about clarity?"

When people find out what it is that's ticking in them, they get straightened out.

A writer should give direct certainty; explanations are so much water poured into the wine.

Hammer your thoughts into unity.

Creating Change - The first step to creating any change is deciding what you do want so that you have something to move toward.

To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...Anybody can have ideas--the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.

Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.

... when we are misunderstood it is always our own fault. What the reader wants most of all is to be able to grasp what we think; but you loftily refuse to comply.

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.

Writing has been an important exercise to clarify what I believe, what I see, what I care about, what my deepest values are. The process of converting a jumble of thoughts into coherent sentences makes you ask tougher questions.

Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.

If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution.

You can't see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears.

That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquillity.

. . . Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded. . . .

What is necessary is to rectify names.

If language is not rectified, words do not correspond to meaning, and if words do not correspond to meaning, our deeds cannot be accomplished.

An order that can be misunderstood, will be misunderstood.

Wisdom consists in knowing what not to want as well as what to want.

If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.

Stars and shadows ain't good to see by.

Who can wait in stillness while the mud settles?

To experience anything fully and see it clearly there must be a moment of presence where conceptual thinking is not interfering with your experience of that moment.

Bad terminology is the enemy of good thinking.

He who would reproach an author for obscurity should look into his own mind to see whether it is quite clear there. In the dusk the plainest writing is illegible.

Let all the laws be clear, uniform and precise for interpreting laws is almost always to corrupt them.

Writing simply means no dependent clauses, no dangling things, no flashbacks, and keeping the subject near the predicate. We throw in as many fresh words we can get away with. Simple, short sentences don't always work. You have to do tricks with pacing, alternate long sentences with short, to keep it vital and alive.... Virtually every page is a cliffhanger--you've got to force them to turn it."~

Simplicity is a key to avoiding complication. Part of the definition of simplicity is 'not complex or complicated; sincere.'

I recently got into Haiku in Japan and I just think it's fantastic. Obviously, when you get rid of a whole section of illusion in your mind you're left with great precision.

My tongue is prone to lose the way,Not so my pen, for in a letterWe have not better things to say,But surely put them better.

Un croquis vaut mieux qu

My dear if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs.

A thief loves the night. I am day. I reveal essences.

If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.

Let muddy water stand and it will become clear.

In language clarity is everything.

Perfect clarity would profit the intellect but damage the will.

When you let go of the belief that you should or need to know who you are, what happens to confusion? Suddenly it is gone. When you fully accept that you don't know, you actually enter a state of peace and clarity that is closer to who you truly are than thought could ever be. Defining yourself through thought is limiting yourself.

What I really need is to get clear out about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge precedes every act.

The more transparent the writing, the more visible the poetry.

If I gaze at my beloved she may feel embarrassed and if I do not, she will feel neglected. I can see the stars reflecting in the calm water of her face but if I look away I lose my clarity.

True thinkers are characterized by a blending of clearness and mystery.

Creativity is a gift. It doesn't come through if the air is cluttered.

How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms

You must ask for what you really want.

It is good to express a thing twice right at the outset and so to give it a right foot and also a left one. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around.

Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.

The mind's deepest desire, even in its most elaborate operations, parallels man's unconscious feeling in the face of his universe: it is an insistence upon familiarity, an appetite for clarity.

Light up the fire of love inside and blaze the thoughts away.

One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plow out again through the side of his head.

Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.

When you are full of problems, there is no room for anything new to enter, no room for a solution. So whenever you can, make some room, create some space, so that you find the life underneath your life situation.

It has often been said there’s so much to be read, you never can cram all those words in your head. So the writer who breeds more words than he needs is making a chore for the reader who reads. That's why my belief is the briefer the brief is, the greater the sigh of the reader's relief is. And that's why your books have such power and strength. You publish with shorth! (Shorth is better than length.)

The battle is all over except the 'shouting' when one knows what is wanted and has made up his mind to get it, whatever the price may be.

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.

I would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the purpose.