Werner Heisenberg Quotes

The physicist may be satisfied when he has the mathematical scheme and knows how to use for the interpretation of the experiments. But he has to speak about his results also to non-physicists who will not be satisfied unless some explanation is given in plain language. Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be the criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.

Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.

I'm always telling my students that if they can't explain what they are doing, to their grandmothers, then they probably don't understand it themselves.

More information is always better than less. When people know the reason things are happening, even if it's bad news, they can adjust their expectations and react accordingly. Keeping people in the dark only serves to stir negative emotions.

If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it.

What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that's really the essence of programming. By the time you've sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you've learned something about it yourself... The teacher usually learns more than the pupils. Isn't that true?

Telling someone something he does not understand is pointless, even if you add that he will not be able to understand it.

As far as I'm concerned, if something is so complicated that you can't explain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway.

The more a subject is understood, the more briefly it may be explained.

An expert is someone who takes something you already know and makes it sound confusing.

Explanations are clear but since no one to whom a thing is explained can connect the explanations with what is really clear, therefore clear explanations are not clear.

If we are ready to tolerate everything as understood, there is nothing left to explain; while if we sourly refuse to take anything, even tentatively, as clear, no explanation can be given.

Everything can be explained to the people, on the single condition that you want them to understand.

Don't express your ideas too clearly. Most people think little of what they understand, and venerate what they do not.

I don't like the word transparency; cold dead glass is transparent. I prefer education or understanding, which are more human.

You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.

Listening is a lamp that dispels the darkness of ignorance.

If I wanted you to understand it, I would have explained it better.

If you can't summarize an issue on one page, you don't understand the issue well enough.

If you can’t understand it without an explanation, you can’t understand it with an explanation.

There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little, and therefore men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not keep their suspicions in smother.

I find myself trying to explain more, and explain the perspective of my mentality, or the mentality I'm trying to convey.

Explanation by the tongue makes most things clear, But love unexplained is clearer.

My method is related to an attempt to do something that might be understood by today's world, or that could at least provide understanding. In other words, doing something I understand and that everyone understands. This natural desire for communication is also found in other domains, like reading and discourse, etc. I also hate repeating myself; it gives me no pleasure whatsoever. Once I've understood something, I need to start off on new ground.