Ludwig Wittgenstein Quotes

If you really understand something, you can say it in the fewest words, instead of thrashing about.

The niftiest turn of phrase, the most elegant flight of rhetorical fancy, isn't worth beans next to a clear thought clearly expressed.

Never mistake legibility for communication.

Whatever is clearly expressed is well wrote.

I wish my prose to be transparent—I don't want the reader to stumble over me; I want him to look through what I'm saying to what I'm describing. I don't want him ever to say, Oh, goodness, how nicely written this is. That would be a failure.

Whatever we well understand we express clearly, and words flow with ease.

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

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

I also try to discipline myself when I get into a situation... and I'm trying to think of an answer, instead of being verbose, which is a tendency that I have, to be concise. Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

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

A writer should never be brief at the expense of being clear.

Clarity in language depends on clarity in thought.

I see but one rule: to be clear.

If you care about being thought credible and intelligent, do not use complex language where simpler language will do.

One must be as clear as one's natural reticence allows one to be.

Great men, like nature, use simple language.

Uncommon things must be said in common words, if you would have them to be received in less than a century.

It is very hard to be simple enough to be good.

Why do we embroider everything we say with special emphasis when all we really need to do is simply say what needs to he said? Of course the fact is that there is very little that needs to be said.

Do but take care to express yourself in a plain, easy Manner, in well-chosen, significant and decent Terms, and to give a harmonious and pleasing Turn to your Periods: study to explain your Thoughts, and set them in the truest Light, labouring as much as possible, not to leave them dark nor intricate, but clear and intelligible.

a writer's first duty is to be clear. Clarity is an excellent virtue. Like all virtues it can be pursued at ruinous cost. Paid, so far as I am concerned, joyfully.

The understanding between a non-technical writer and his reader is that he shall talk more or less like a human being and not like an Act of Parliament. I take it that the aim of such books must be to convey exact thought in inexact language... he can never succeed without the co-operation of the reader.

The shorter and the plainer the better.

It is important that you say what you mean to say. Time is too short. You must speak the words that matter.

What I'm constantly striving for in my prose is clarity. So that, ideally, the writing will become so transparent that the reader will forget that the medium of communication is language.