Clear Thinking Quotes

Definitions are the foundation of reason. You can't reason without them.

Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong—these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.

Language is the dress of thought; and as the noblest mien or most graceful action would be degraded and obscured by a garb appropriated to the gross employments of rusticks or mechanics, so the most heroick sentiments will lose their efficacy

Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.

Every situation, no matter how complex it initially looks, is exceedingly simple.

[Richard Feynman] truly believed that if you couldn't explain something simply, you didn't understand it.

We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.

Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature.

Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.

... common sense is very rare.

I believe in the critical importance of participating in the political system - from voting to standing for election. It's both rewarding and necessary that men and women of good will and clear thinking engage in honest, open debate.

Any idiot can be complicated. It takes a genius to be simple.

To solve a problem, you have to be able to state what the problem is or at least say the name.

Whoever knows he is deep tries to be clear, but whoever wants to seem deep to the crowd tries to be obscure. For the crowd supposes that anything it cannot see to the bottom must be deep: it is so timid and goes so unwillingly into the water.

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

The design of Rhetoric is to remove those Prejudices that lie in the way of Truth, to Reduce the Passions to the Government of Reasons; to place our Subject in a Right Light, and excite our Hearers to a due consideration of it.

That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex.

Short, sweet, and to the point. Clear writing, and therefore clear commands, comes from clear thinking. Think simple.

He who thinks much says but little in proportion to his thoughts. He selects that language which will convey his ideas in the most explicit and direct manner. He tries to compress as much thought as possible into a few words. On the contrary, the man who talks everlastingly and promiscuously, who seems to have an exhaustless magazine of sound, crowds so many words into his thoughts that he always obscures, and very frequently conceals them.

I've always wanted to make the world a more rational place. I'm still working on it.

Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said can be said clearly. Ludwig Wittgenstein

When I started out, I wasn't a thinking bowler, but talking to seniors and coaches helped. They would always tell me that I ought to be clear about where I wanted to bowl before I ran in to bowl.

There is no problem so complicated that you can't find a very simple answer to it if you look at it right.

If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind.