Daniel Dennett Quotes

In labouring to be concise, I become obscure.

It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure.

Like many intellectuals, he was incapable of saying a simple thing in a simple way.

It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do.

Make everything as simple as possible but not simpler.

I labor to be brief, and manage to be obscure.

It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated.

I admire writers who can make complicated things simple, but my own talent has been to make simple things complicated.

Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.

It takes a long time to make it simple.

Find the heart of it. Make the complex simple, and you can achieve mastery.

You can't say you want things to be simple and then in the next breath ask me to be honest.

Complexity and obscurity have professional value - they are the academic equivalents of apprenticeship rules in the building trades. They exclude the outsiders, keep down the competition, preserve the image of a privileged or priestly class. The man who makes things clear is a scab. He is criticized less for his clarity than for his treachery.

It will take all your heart, it will take all your breath It will be short, it will not be simple

I am never needlessly obscure - I am needfully obscure, when I am obscure.

You can't believe how hard it is for people to be simple, how much they fear being simple. They worry that if they're simple, people will think they're simpleminded. In reality, of course, it's just the reverse. Clear, tough-minded people are the most simple.

Golf is deceptively simple, endlessly complicated. A child can play it well and a grown man can never master it. It is almost a science, yet it is a puzzle with no answer.

Like all magnificent things, it's very simple.

If I go out into nature, into the unknown, to the fringes of knowledge, everything seems mixed up and contradictory, illogical, and incoherent. This is what research does; it smooths out contradictions and makes things simple, logical, and coherent.

If things were simple, word would have gotten around.

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

Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity... but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'.

The most important rule is to formulate, clearly and precisely, the goal to be reached, and then to retain it unswervingly in mind throughout all the stages of the execution, which are often long and complex.

I think there is a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity; in clarity, in efficiency. True simplicity is derived from so much more than just the absence of clutter and ornamentation. It's about bringing order to complexity.

A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined.