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
With the unknown, one is confronted with danger, discomfort, and care; the first instinct is to abolish these painful states. First principle: any explanation is better than none… . The causal instinct is thus conditional upon, and excited by, the feeling of fear. The “why?” shall, if at all possible, not give the cause for its own sake so much as for a particular kind of cause—a cause that is comforting, liberating, and relieving.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
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 Politician, Investor, Writer
The simplest explanation is that it doesn’t make sense.
—William Buechner (1914–85) American Nuclear Physicist
There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
I may have said the same thing before…but my explanation, I am sure, will always be different.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
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 (b.1947) American Humorist, Columnist
The explanation of the propensity of the English people to portrait painting is to be found in their relish for a Fact. Let a man do the grandest things, fight the greatest battles, or be distinguished by the most brilliant personal heroism, yet the English people would prefer his portrait to a painting of the great deed. The likeness they can judge of; his existence is a Fact. But the truth of the picture of his deeds they cannot judge of, for they have no imagination.
—Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846) English Painter, Writer
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
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
—Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) (1870–1916) British Short Story Writer, Satirist, Historian
Now it seems to me that love of some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.
—Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) Italian Catholic Priest, Philosopher, Theologian
When there is no explanation, then give it a name, which immediately explains everything
—Martin H. Fischer
Good luck needs no explanation.
—Shirley Temple (1928–2014) American Actress, Diplomat
Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible.
—Eugene Ionesco (1909–94) Romanian-born French Dramatist
If the abstract rights of man will bear discussion and explanation, those of women, by a parity of reasoning, will not shrink from the same test: though a different opinion prevails in this country.
—Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97) English Writer, Feminist
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
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
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
If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
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
An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
The best argument is that which seems merely an explanation
—Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American Self-Help Author
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
Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have claimed to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings.
—Salman Rushdie (b.1947) Indian-born British Novelist
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, Literary Critic
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
What does it feel like to be a parent? What does it feel like to be a child? And that’s what stories do. They bring you there. They offer a dramatic explanation, which is always different from an expository explanation.
—Richard Russo (b.1949) American Novelist
On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, we gain no scientific explanation.
—Charles Darwin (1809–82) English Naturalist
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