Richard P. Feynman Quotes

Don't write so that you can be understood, write so that you can't be misunderstood.

I think people have problems sometimes when things are too general. In fact, they are not really general at all.

Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.

It is better not to express what one means than to express what one does not mean.

The only guaranteed way to make something not very funny is to make it vague.

Ambiguity is very interesting in writing; it's not very interesting in science.

If I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said.

There's a fine line in being too specific so you can't be too flexible, and being too vague in being specific and people not thinking it's meaningful.

It does not pay a prophet to be too specific.

Anybody can be specific and obvious. That's always been the easy way. It's not that it's so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it's just that there's nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.

It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.

The more specific you are, the more general it'll be.

We find few disputes, that are not founded on some ambiguity in the expression [thereof].

We should not write so that it is possible for [the reader] to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us.

Any order that can be misunderstood, will be misunderstood

When you fail to communicate, there are gray areas. And when there's gray areas, then bad things happen.

It is... easy to be certain. One has only to be sufficiently vague.

If the Way is made clear, it is not the Way.

Why do you say vague things if you don't want to be asked about them?

After all we speak of people 'taking refuge' in vagueness -the more precise you are, in general the more likely you are to be wrong, whereas you stand a good chance of not being wrong if you make it vague enough.

It is better to be wrong than to be vague.

if the way ahead is not clear, time is often the best editor of one's intentions.

One must confront vague ideas with clear images.

Everything’s not exactly the way it seems ” I said. “It seemed like you had your tongue down his throat ” Finn glared at us both. “Well then everything is exactly as it seems ” Loki said glibly.

No blur of inexactness, no cloud of vagueness, is allowable in good writing; from the first seeing to the last putting down, there must be steady lucidity and uncompromise of purpose.