And do you accept the idea that there is no explanation?
—Julio Cortazar (1914–84) Argentine-French Novelist, Translator, Short Story Writer
Hopefully my music is medicine, some type of antidote for something or some kind of explanation or just to feel good.
—Erykah Badu (b.1971) American Singer, Producer
The only valid thing in art is the one thing that cannot be explained, to explain away the mystery of a great painting would do irreplaceable harm, for whenever you explain or define something you substitute the explanation or the definition for the
—Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French Painter, Sculptor, Lithographer
We operate with nothing but things which do not exist, with lines, planes, bodies, atoms, divisible time, divisible space—how should explanation even be possible when we first make everything into an image, into our own image!
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Facts which at first seem improbable will, even on scant explanation, drop the cloak which has hidden them and stand forth in naked and simple beauty.
—Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian Astronomer, Physicist, Mathematician
Who is like the wise man?. Who knows the explanation of things?. Wisdom brightens a man’s face and changes its hard appearance
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Most intellectuals today have a phobia of any explanation of the mind that invokes genetics.
—Steven Pinker (b.1954) Canadian-American Experimental Psychologist
Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a god, but a great rock, and the sun a hot rock.
—Anaxagoras (500–428 BCE) Ionian Philosopher
Do not seek the because – in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions.
—Anais Nin (1903–77) French-American Essayist
The simplest explanation is that it doesn’t make sense.
—William Buechner (1914–85) American Nuclear Physicist
The five steps in teaching an employee new skills are preparation, explanation, showing, observation and supervision.
—Bruce Fairchild Barton (1886–1967) American Author, Advertising Executive, Politician
Explaining metaphysics to the nation – / I wish he would explain his explanation.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
The one man who should never attempt an explanation on poetry is its author. If the poem can be improved by its author’s explanations, it never should have been published.
—Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982) American Poet, Dramatist
The simplest and most psychologically satisfying explanation of any observed phenomenon is that it happened that way because someone wanted it to happen that way.
—Thomas Sowell (b.1930) American Conservative Economist, Political Commentator
An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.
—C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) Irish-British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
Why need every honest poet be suspected of leading a quadruple life? Sometimes the second or third meaning is less interesting than the first, and the only really difficult thing about a poem is the critic’s explanation of it
—Frank Moore Colby (1865–1925) American Encyclopedia Editor, Essayist
Since we think we understand when we know the explanation, and there are four types of explanation (one, what it is to be a thing; one, that if certain things hold it is necessary that this does; another, what initiated the change; and fourth, the aim), all these are proved through the middle term.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Every European visitor to the United States is struck by the comparative rarity of what he would call a face, by the frequency of men and women who look like elderly babies. If he stays in the States for any length of time, he will learn that this cannot be put down to a lack of sensibility—the American feels the joys and sufferings of human life as keenly as anybody else. The only plausible explanation I can find lies in his different attitude to the past. To have a face, in the European sense of the word, it would seem that one must not only enjoy and suffer but also desire to preserve the memory of even the most humiliating and unpleasant experiences of the past.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
Myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience, of which the purpose is too deep, going too deep in the blood and soul, for mental explanation or description.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Critic
When there is no explanation, then give it a name, which immediately explains everything
—Martin H. Fischer
The persons of their world lived in an atmosphere of faint implications and pale delicacies, and the fact that he and she understood each other without a word seemed to the young man to bring them nearer than any explanation would have done.
—Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American Novelist, Short-story Writer
And beauty is a form of genius—is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has its divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Good luck needs no explanation.
—Shirley Temple (1928–2014) American Actress, Diplomat
I fear explanations explanatory of things explained.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
This has always been a man’s world, and none of the reasons that have been offered in explanation have seemed adequate.
—Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) French Philosopher, Writer, Feminist
You don’t need an explanation for everything, Recognize that there are such things as miracles—events for which there are no ready explanations. Later knowledge may explain those events quite easily.
—Harry Browne (1933–2006) American Author, Economist, Politician
No explanation ever explains the necessity of making one.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
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