Arthur Eddington Quotes

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

He that will write well in any tongue, must follow this counsel of Aristotle, to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do: and so should every man understand him, and the judgment of wise men allow him.

Communication is about being effective, not always about being proper.

Uncommon things must be said in common words.

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

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.

The speaker must choose a comprehensible expression so that speaker and hearer can understand one another.

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.

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

I've always been very aware of what I'm saying, but I'm also aware of what you're saying. I always want to make sure that my point is clear.

Good communication is just as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.

I try to just communicate what I want done as clearly and simply as possible.

We should not write so that it is possible for [the reader] to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us.

Clarity of communication is important.

The more clearly you write, the more easily and surely you will be understood.

Do not put cleverness in front of the communication.

Easy writing makes hard reading.

Never mistake legibility for communication.

To make yourself understood you have to think plain and write plain.

Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself might convey his notions to another, if, content to be understood, he did not seek to be admired.

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.

I thought clarity of communication was the most important thing in writing, and if you really cared about getting your idea across, you would say it in the most straightforward way possible. Later, in college and grad school, I came to realize that language is a technology like any other, and that it's always evolving - clarity of expression is always evolving.

If I am ever obscure in my expressions, do not fancy that therefore I am deep. If I were really deep, all the world would understand, though they might not appreciate. The perfectly popular style is the perfectly scientific one. To me an obscurity is a reason for suspecting a fallacy.

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

How well we communicate is determined not by how well we say things but how well we are understood.