10 Eric Hoffer Quotes on Clarity

Eric Hoffer quotes on clarity

4. Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas.

5. There is not an idea that cannot be expressed in 200 words. But the writer must know precisely what he wants to say. If you have nothing to say and want badly to say it, then all the words in all the dictionaries will not suffice.

62. To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.

120. To think out a problem is not unlike drawing a caricature. You have to exaggerate the salient point and leave out that which is not typical. 'To illustrate a principle,' says Bagehot, 'you must exaggerate much and you must omit much.' As to the quantity of absolute truth in a thought: it seems to me the more comprehensive and unobjectionable a thought becomes, the more clumsy and unexciting it gets. I like half-truths of a certain kind - they are interesting and they stimulate.

121. There is no reason why the profoundest thoughts should not make easy and exciting reading. A profound thought is an exciting thing - as exciting as a detective's deductions or hunches. The simpler the words in which a thought is expressed the more stimulating its effect.

136. A multitude of words is probably the most formidable means of blurring and obscuring thought. There is no thought, however momentous, that cannot be expressed lucidly in 200 words.

147. Good writing, like gold, combines lustrous lucidity with high density. What this means is good writing is packed with hints.

148. I have never felt that I had a thought too profound for others to understand. On the contrary, it always seemed to me axiomatic that what was clear to me should be clear and easy to everyone else. This despite the fact that it often took me years to grope my way to an idea.... I can spend days and even months on a single sentence. I do not know how to skip. To think and write with me is like putting brick on brick.

149. How rare it is to come across a piece of writing that is unambiguous, unqualified, and also unblurred by understatements or subtleties, and yet at the same time urbane and tolerant. It is a vice of the scientific method when applied to human affairs that it fosters hemming and hawing and a scrupulousness that easily degenerates into obscurity and meaninglessness.

152. What counts most is holding on. The growth of a train of thought is not a direct forward flow. There is a succession of spurts separated by intervals of stagnation, frustration, and discouragement. If you hold on, there is bound to come a certain clarification. The unessential components drop off and a coherent, lucid whole begins to take shape.