David Ogilvy Quotes

Of writing well the source and fountainhead is wise thinking.

Writing's a great skill, but thinking's a better one.

If you can't write clearly, you probably don't think nearly as well as you think you do.

Clarity in language depends on clarity in thought.

I think what's really hard is making sense and making what you write clear and smooth-flowing.

It is not merely that Johnny can't read, or even that Johnny can't think. Johnny doesn't know what thinking is, because thinking is so often confused with feeling. … The phrase ‘I feel’ is often used by American students to introduce a conclusion, rather than say ‘I think,’ or ‘I know,’ much less ‘I conclude.’ Unfortunately, ‘I feel’ is often the most accurate term…

Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, and the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well.

I am convinced that the act of thinking logically cannot possibly be natural to the human mind. If it were, then mathematics would be everybody's easiest course at school and our species would not have taken several millennia to figure out the scientific method.

Then you have a big problem, because a human is a thinking animal. If you don't think, you're not really a human.

To write is to think, and to write well is to think well.

We do not at present educate people to think but, rather, to have opinions, and that is something altogether different.

I think you have to be left-brained, to a certain extent, to understand science. I can talk about it, but I can't do it.

Writing and reading and speaking with specificity and skill has never seen more important to me than it does at this moment. It's what's between us and chaos.

Mechanical rules are never a substitute for clarity of thought.

I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing — to be clear.

Organized common (or uncommon) sense -- very basic knowledge -- is an enormously powerful tool. There are huge dangers with computers. People calculate too much and think too little.

You know very well that I no longer think. I am far too intelligent for that.

Stupidity is no excuse of not thinking.

I have this real moron thing I do? It's called thinking.

Sound judgment is the ground of writing well.

The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. Because I have the greatest respect for the reader, and if he's going to the trouble of reading what I've written -- I'm a slow reader myself and I guess most people are -- why, the least I can do is make it as easy as possible for him to find out what I'm trying to say, trying to get at. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.

I think that as you learn more about writing you learn to be direct.

...most people in the world don't really use their brains to think. And people who don't think are the ones who don't listen to others.

There are a lot of clear thinkers everywhere.

Crystal-clear thinking is one of the things we look for - not a fancy slide pitch, but crystal-clear thinking.