“The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning and inhibit clarity.”

—  Bill Watterson

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning and inhibit clarity." by Bill Watterson?
Bill Watterson photo
Bill Watterson 165
American comic artist 1958

Related quotes

Oswald Spengler photo

“p>Romanticism is no sign of powerful instincts, but, on the contrary, of a weak, self-detesting intellect. They are all infantile, these Romantics; men who remain children too long (or for ever), without the strength to criticize themselves, but with perpetual inhibitions arising from the obscure awareness of their own personal weakness; who are impelled by the morbid idea of reforming society, which is to them too masculine, too healthy, too sober.”

Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) German historian and philosopher

...</p>
<p>And these same everlasting "Youths" are with us again today, immature, destitute of the slightest experience or even real desire for experience, but writing and talking away about politics, fired by uniforms and badges, and clinging fantastically to some theory or other. There is a social Romanticism of sentimental Communists, a political Romanticism which regards election figures and the intoxication of mass-meeting oratory as deeds, and an economic Romanticism which trickles out from behind the gold theories of sick minds that know nothing of the inner forms of modern economics. They can only feel in the mass, where they can deaden the dull sense of their weakness by multiplying themselves. And this they call the Overcoming of Individualism.</p>
The Hour of Decision (1933)

“Theory confronts experiment, and both sides are a mixture of obscurity and clarity.”

Lancelot Law Whyte (1896–1972) Scottish industrial engineer

Essay on Atomism: From Democritus to 1960 (1961), p.19

“Unlike stories, real life, when it has passed, inclines toward obscurity, not clarity.”

Elena Ferrante (1943) Italian writer

Source: The Story of the Lost Child

“If we were in the habit of reading poets their obscurity would not matter; and, once we are out of the habit, their clarity does not help.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“The Obscurity of the Poet”, p. 4
Poetry and the Age (1953)

George Fitzhugh photo

“What is falsely called Free Society, is a very recent invention. It purposes to make the weak, ignorant and poor, free, by turning them loose in a world owned exclusively by the few.”

George Fitzhugh (1806–1881) American activist

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 108

Nicolás Gómez Dávila photo

“Clarity of text is the sole incontrovertible sign of the maturity of an idea.”

Nicolás Gómez Dávila (1913–1994) Colombian writer and philosopher

Sucesivos Escolios a un Texto Implícito (1992)

Ferdinand de Saussure photo

“Writing obscures language; it is not a guise for language but a disguise.”

Ferdinand de Saussure book Course in General Linguistics

Source: Cours de linguistique générale (1916), p. 31

Ernest Flagg photo

“Clarity or Decision. …without it there is uncertainty, hesitation, obscurity, instability… incomparable with good art. The meaning and object of the design should be clear… it should be frank, as the French say.”

Ernest Flagg (1857–1947) American architect

Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)
Context: Clarity or Decision.... without it there is uncertainty, hesitation, obscurity, instability... incomparable with good art. The meaning and object of the design should be clear... it should be frank, as the French say.

Related topics