Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes

Clarity is the most important thing to me - in thinking - and so I try in the books to be as clear as possible.

Bad terminology is the enemy of good thinking.

Words are how people think. When you misuse words, you diminish your ability to think clearly and truthfully.

Words easy to be understood do often hit the mark; when high and learned ones do only pierce the air.

Uncommon things must be said in common words.

Words, like glasses, obscure everything they do not make clear. Before using a fine word, make a place for it.

If you say three things, you don't say anything.

The simpler you say it, the more eloquent it is.

Never be so brief as to become obscure.

I counted solely on the clarity of expression of my work to gain my ends.

I'm clearer now in what I want to say, and I know better how to say just that.

The first requisite of style, not only in rhetoric, but in all compositions, is perspicuity.

I see but one rule: to be clear. If I am not clear, all my world crumbles to nothing.

Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences and paragraphs. It isn't about slickness. Simple and clear go a long way.

Being incomprehensible offers unparalleled protection against having nothing to say...but writing with simplicity requires courage, for there is a danger that one will be overlooked, dismissed as simpleminded by those with a tenacious belief that the impassable prose is a hallmark of intelligence.

I never want to confuse people or go over their heads.

Where questions of style and exposition are concerned I try to follow a simple maxim: if you can't say it clearly you don't understand it yourself.

I try to be as clear as I can be.

The right word fitly spoken is a precious rarity.

If you make yourself understood, you're always speaking well.

In labouring to be concise, I become obscure.

Simple and to the point is always the best way to get your point across.

Language is a tool adequate to provide any degree of precision relevant to a particular situation.

I am not very good at expressing myself in a simple way so it can create mis-understandings and I hate that.

If you need three adjectives to describe something, then you've probably chosen the wrong something.