“With all things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.”
Variant: The simplest explanation is usually the right one
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William of Ockham 13
medieval philosopher and theologian 1285–1349Related quotes
“When multiple explanations exist, the simplest is usually correct.”
Source: Deception Point
The Life Process is the End—not man, nor any other animal temporarily privileged to weave a world's philosophy. Non-human beings were not made for human beings any more than human beings were made for non-human beings. Just as the sidereal spheres were once supposed by the childish mind of man to be unsubstantial satellites of the earth, but are known by man's riper understanding to be worlds with missions and materialities of their own, and of such magnitude and number as to render terrestrial insignificance frightful, so the billions that dwell in the seas, fields, and atmospheres of the earth were in like manner imagined by the illiterate children of the race to be the mere trinkets of men, but are now known by all who can interpret the new revelation to be beings with substantially the same origin, the same natures, structures, and occupations, and the same general rights to life and happiness, as we ourselves.
Source: The Universal Kinship (1906), The Ethical Kinship, "Conclusion", p. 324
as quoted by Dr. Javed Laghari in Monograph titled "Leaders of Pakistan" published by SZABIST, Pages 2-10 ( Vol.1 June-2009 http://www.szabist.edu.pk/Publications/Books/LeadershipBK-CP-09.pdf/). Retrieved on July 21, 2016
Source: Everybody’s Autobiography (1937), Ch. 4
Context: Explanations are clear but since no one to whom a thing is explained can connect the explanations with what is really clear, therefore clear explanations are not clear. Now this is a simple thing that anybody who has ever argued or quarreled knows perfectly well is a simple thing, only when they read it they do not understand it because they do not see that understanding and believing are not the same thing.
Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "The Land Ethic", p. 224-225.
Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There
Context: Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.
“In securing the equal rights of these we shall secure the equal rights of all.”
Source: Social Problems (1883), Ch. 21 : Conclusion
Context: Those who are most to be considered, those for whose help the struggle must be made, if labor is to be enfranchised, and social justice won, are those least able to help or struggle for themselves, those who have no advantage of property or skill or intelligence, — the men and women who are at the very bottom of the social scale. In securing the equal rights of these we shall secure the equal rights of all.
Hence it is, as Mazzini said, that it is around the standard of duty rather than around the standard of self-interest that men must rally to win the rights of man. And herein may we see the deep philosophy of Him who bade men love their neighbors as themselves.
In that spirit, and in no other, is the power to solve social problems and carry civilization onward.
Source: The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)