Quotes about explanations
Ernest Nagel - The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation
It is the desire for explanations that are at once systematic and controllable by factual evidence that generates science and it is the organization and classification of knowledge on the basis of explanatory principles that is the distinctive goal of the sciences.
Algernon Blackwood - Monster Mix
It was so easy to be wise in the explanation of an experience one has not personally witnessed.("The Wendigo")
Marty Rubin -
I don't try to explain or justify my actions. I simply do what I do.
Albert Camus - The Stranger
I didn’t like having to explain to them, so I just shut up, smoked a cigarette, and looked at the sea.
Haruki Murakami - 1Q84
If you can't understand it without an explanation, you can't understand it with an explanation.
Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.
Deyth Banger -
If you can't explain it better leave it... (Dexter Season 2....)
J. Ross Clara - Citations: A Brief Anthology
Explanations are for cowards.
Agatha Christie - The Seven Dials Mystery
To rush into explanations is always a sign of weakness.
G.M. Jackson - Debunking Darwin's God: A Case Against BioLogos and Theistic Evolution
Toward the end of his book, Miller explains his need to unite science and religion: science does not explain the meaning and purpose of life. That may be, but why should we assume religion explains such things any better? Just because religion attempts to answer such questions does not mean its answers are correct. And such answers never seem to achieve any consensus. What is the meaning of life? Your answer is as good as mine--or just as bad.
Pat Riley - The Winner Within
When a great team loses through complacency, it will constantly search for new and more intricate explanations to explain away defeat. After a while it becomes more innovative in thinking up how to lose than thinnking up how to win.
Alethea Black - I Knew You'd Be Lovely
It's a fruitless task, explaining yourself," he said. He was enjoying confessing the truth for once. "Either people get you, or they don't. In fact, even when they get you, it's always…a disappointment.
László Krasznahorkai - Destruction and Sorrow beneath the Heavens: Reportage
It is not always necessary to search for the cause behind everything, because every cause is unfounded. A cause only looks like a cause from a certain viewpoint.
Leviak B. Kelly - Religion: The Ultimate STD: Living a Spiritual Life without Dogmatics or Cultural Destruction
The notion must be put aside that emotions are irrational and we must see emotions for their true function. This will not rob the emotional content, it will merely explain it. Some things when more deeply explained provide greater sources of personal and corporate pleasure, not less.
Leslie Jamison - The Empathy Exams: Essays
facts are aligned on shelves as well, necessarily chosen and arranged, assigned value by explanations neatly stuck where prices might have been.
Shirley Jackson - and Other Writings
None of these things bothered us excessively; we have always been a family that carries bewilderment like a banner, and odd new confusions do not actually seem to be any more bewildering than the ones we invent for ourselves; moreover, in each of these cases it was easier to believe that nothing had happened, or that it was of no importance anyway.
Marty Rubin -
The fish don't need to know why they're in the water.
Marty Rubin -
The earth keeps turning but it never says why.
Erin Morgenstern - The Night Circus
What happened?" Bailey asks."That is somewhat difficult to explain," Tsukiko answers. "It is a long and complicated story.""And you're not going to tell me, are you?"She tilts her head a bit ... "No, I am not," she says."Great," Bailey mutters under his breath... "The bonfire exploded? How?""Remember when I said it was difficult to explain? That has not changed.
Matthew S. McCormick -
1. Myth: Without God, life has no meaning. There are 1.2 billion Chinese who have no predominant religion, and 1 billion people in India who are predominantly Hindu. And 65% of Japan's 127 million people claim to be non-believers. It is laughable to suggest that none of these billions of people are leading meaningful lives.2. Myth: Prayer works. Studies have now shown that inter-cessionary prayer has no effect whatsoever of the health or well-being of the subject.3. Myth: Atheists are immoral.Th
Chris Geiger - Bad Cells
Those who know you don’t need explanations, those who don’t won't believe you.
Wilkie Collins - The Woman in White
The explanation has been written already in the three words that were many enough, and plain enough, for my confession. I loved her.
Elbert Hubbard -
Never explain―your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.
Steven Erikson - The Bonehunters
Save your explanations, I got some questions for you first and you'd better answer them!' [slurred Hellian.] 'With what?' [Banaschar] sneered. 'Explanations?' 'No. Answers. There's a difference-' 'Really? How? What difference?' 'Explanations are what people use when they need to lie. Y'can always tell those,'cause those don't explain nothing and then they look at you like they just cleared things up when really they did the opposite and they know it and you know it and they know you know and you
Alfred North Whitehead - 11/1919
The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, 'Seek simplicity and distrust it.
Marty Rubin -
No explanation is ever as good as not having one.
Marty Rubin -
Philosophers console themselves with explanations.
Paul Lockhart - A Mathematician's Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form
... That little narrative is an example of the mathematician’s art: asking simple and elegant questions about our imaginary creations, and crafting satisfying and beautiful explanations. There is really nothing else quite like this realm of pure idea; it’s fascinating, it’s fun, and it’s free!
Debasish Mridha -
Explanations can’t explain love--only deep perception can do that.
Abhijit Naskar - Principia Humanitas
every single explanation that your brain concocts about a certain phenomenon on earth, is merely a virtual hunch of the neurons. Now, when your brain has access to more information, the resulting hunch would be more accurate, than another person who has less access.
Abhijit Naskar - Principia Humanitas
When you don’t have explanation for a certain phenomenon, as a real human, you should suspend judgement, instead of concocting supernatural explanations out of ignorance and primordial fanaticism.
Abhijit Naskar - Principia Humanitas
It is better to be foolish than a dilettante.
Criss Jami - Killosophy
Constantly stopping to explain oneself may expand into a frustrating burden for the rare individual, so ceasing to do so is like finally dropping the weights and sprinting towards his goals. Those who insincerely misunderstand, who intentionally distort the motives of a pure-intentioned individual, then, no longer have the opportunity to block his path; instead, they are the ones left to stand on the sidelines shouting frustratedly in the wind of his trail.
William Golding - The Spire
It's simpler to believe in a miracle.
John Berger - Ways of Seeing
The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer - God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas
The lack of mystery in our modern life is our downfall and our poverty. A human life is worth as much as the respect it holds for the mystery. We retain the child in us to the extent that we honor the mystery. Therefore, children have open, wide-awake eyes, because they know that they are surrounded by the mystery. They are not yet finished with this world; they still don’t know how to struggle along and avoid the mystery, as we do. We destroy the mystery because we sense that here we reach the
Thomas Cathcart - Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes
Sorting out what's good and bad is the province of ethics. It is also what keeps priests, pundits, and parents busy. Unfortunately, what keeps children and philosophers busy is asking the priests, pundits and parents, "Why?
Neil Gaiman -
You don't get explanations in real life. You just get moments that are absolutely, utterly, inexplicably odd.