John Arbuthnot Fisher - George Eliot - Elbert Hubbard - Carl Sagan - Ernest Rutherford - Bram Stoker - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Rick Riordan - Red Dwarf TV - Benjamin Disraeli - Thomas Aquinas - Dave Barry - Albert Einstein - William of Occam - Agatha Christie - Lewis Carroll -
Never contradict
Never explain
Never apologise. John Arbuthnot Fisher, letter to The Times 5th September 1919
But let the wise be warned against too great readiness at explanation: it multiplies the sources of mistake, lengthening the sum for reckoners sure to go wrong. George Eliot, Middlemarch
Never explain – your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway. Elbert Hubbard, The Motto Book, 1907
Not explaining science seems to me perverse. When you are in love, you want to tell the world. Carl Sagan
An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid. Ernest Rutherford, cited G J Whitrow ‘Einstein: The Man and His Achievement’, 1973
Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are; that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplated by men’s eyes, because they know – or think they know – some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. Bram Stoker, Dracula
Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot
You might as well ask an artist to explain his art, or ask a poet to explain his poem. It defeats the purpose. The meaning is only clear thorough the search. Rick Riordan
There’s a perfectly logical explanation for everything, with the possible exception of Little Jimmy Osmond. Red Dwarf s2e3: Thanks for the Memory, Holly, BBC 1998
Never complain and never explain. Benjamin Disraeli, attributions & variations
To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible. Thomas Aquinas
In fact, when you get right down to it, almost every explanation man came up with for anything until about 1926 was stupid. Dave Barry
One may say, ‘the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.’ Albert Einstein, article ‘Physics & Reality’, attributions & variations inc Kant
No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary. William of Occam, ‘Occam’s Razor’ attributed
To rush into explanations is always a sign of weakness. Agatha Christie, The Seven Dials Mystery
No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time. Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland