“If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.”

— Albert Einstein

Earliest attribution located is The Yogi and the Commissar by Arthur Koestler (1945), p. v http://books.google.com/books?id=tys4AAAAIAAJ&q=%22you+are+out+to+describe+the+truth%22#search_anchor. Koestler prefaces it with "My comfort is what Einstein said when somebody reproached him with the suggestion that his formula of gravitation was longer and more cumbersome than Newton's formula in its elegant simplicity". This is actually a variant of a quote Einstein attributed to Ludwig Boltzmann; in the Preface to his Relativity—The Special and General Theory (1916), Einstein wrote: "I adhered scrupulously to the precept of that brilliant theoretical physicist L. Boltzmann, according to whom matters of elegance ought to be left to the tailor and to the cobbler." (reprinted in the 2007 book A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion: The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein edited by Stephen Hawking, p. 128 http://books.google.com/books?id=th3Cpu_QYVQC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA128#v=onepage&q&f=false)
Misattributed

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Albert Einstein 702

German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativi… 1879–1955

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“If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.”

Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906) Austrian physicist

Misattributed

“Elegance should be left to shoemakers and tailors”

Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906) Austrian physicist

Eleganz sei die Sache der Schuster und Schneider
reported by [Arnold Berliner, Curt Thesing, Die Naturwissenschaften, Springer-Verlag, 1946, 36]
also reported by [Albert Einstein, translation by Robert W. Lawson, Relativity, Plain Label Books, 1921, 1-603-03164-2, preface]
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“Do not treat me in this fashion. Don't leave me out. Have I not
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Context: Do not treat me in this fashion. Don't leave me out. Have I not
Always spoken the truth in my books? And now
You treat me like a liar! I order you:
Burn me!
Those who lead the country into the abyss
Call ruling too difficult
For ordinary men.
Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!

“Do not treat me in this fashion. Don't leave me out. Have I not
Always spoken the truth in my books? And now
You treat me like a liar! I order you:
Burn me!”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

A response to the Nazi book burnings, "The Burning of the Books"

“If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.”

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Albert Einstein 702

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