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
Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible.
—Eugene Ionesco (1909–94) Romanian-born French Dramatist
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 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
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
Most intellectuals today have a phobia of any explanation of the mind that invokes genetics.
—Steven Pinker (b.1954) Canadian-American Experimental Psychologist
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 Politician, Investor, Writer
Don’t confuse hypothesis and theory. The former is a possible explanation; the latter, the correct one. The establishment of theory is the very purpose of science.
—Martin H. Fischer
Communism to me is one-third practice and two-thirds explanation.
—Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist
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
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
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
And do you accept the idea that there is no explanation?
—Julio Cortazar (1914–84) Argentine-French Novelist, Short Story Writer, Translator
The best argument is that which seems merely an explanation
—Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American Self-Help Author
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 explanation is that it doesn’t make sense.
—William Buechner (1914–85) American Nuclear Physicist
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
An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
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
No explanation ever explains the necessity of making one.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
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
Good luck needs no explanation.
—Shirley Temple (1928–2014) American Actress, Diplomat
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
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
I fear explanations explanatory of things explained.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
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
There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Explaining metaphysics to the nation – / I wish he would explain his explanation.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
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
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