Richard Hamming Quotes

Of writing well the source and fountainhead is wise thinking.

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

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

People who think well, write well

Nobody really thinks who does not abstract from that which is given, who does not relate the facts to the factors which have made them, who does not - in his mind - undo the facts. Abstractness is the very life of thought, the token of its authenticity.

Whatever sentence will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was thought twice.

Clear thought makes clear speech.

Writing is thinking in slow motion.

Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think.

...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 is need of brevity, that the thought may run on.

Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional [or scholarly] writers.

It doesn't matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.

Truly successful decision-making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking.

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

To think is not enough, you must think of something.

Information cannot serve as an effective substitute for thinking.

Having each some shingles of thought well dried, we sat and whittled them.

Think. That's what we need you to do. Think.

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

Learn to use your emotions to think, not think with your emotions

You must think. The eye is not enough; it needs to think as well.

It is worth a lot of bother to be able to think properly.

Most of us seldom take the trouble to think. It is a troublesome and fatiguing process and often leads to uncomfortable conclusions. But crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think.

If you want to "get in touch with your feelings," fine, talk to yourself. We all do. But if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order, give them a purpose, use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write it down, and then cut out the confusing parts.