“…the more a subject is understood, the more briefly it may be explained.”

1810s, Letter to Joseph Milligan (6 April 1816)

Adopted from Wikiquote. 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 more a subject is understood, the more briefly it may be explained." by Thomas Jefferson?
Thomas Jefferson photo
Thomas Jefferson 456
3rd President of the United States of America 1743–1826

Related quotes

William Osler photo

“In the history of medicine, there are few instances in which a disease has been more accurately, more graphically or more briefly described.”

William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian pathologist, physician, educator, bibliophile, historian, author, cofounder of Johns Hopkins Hospi…

In reference to "On Chorea" (1872) by George Huntington on what is now known as Huntington's Disease, as quoted in "Huntington's Chorea" by Irwin A. Brody and Robert H. Wilkins in Archives of Neurology Vol. 17, No. 3 (1967). The acclaim Huntington received for this paper, his first, from Osler and others, he would later refer to as an "unsought, unlooked for honor."

Robert M. Pirsig photo

“Between the subject and the object lies the value. This Value is more immediate, more directly sensed than any 'self' or any 'object' to which it may be later assigned.”

Lila (1991)
Context: Between the subject and the object lies the value. This Value is more immediate, more directly sensed than any 'self' or any 'object' to which it may be later assigned. It is more real than the stove. Whether the stove is the cause of the low quality or whether possibly something else is the cause is not yet absolutely certain. But that the quality is low is absolutely certain. It is the primary empirical reality from which such things as stoves and heat and oaths and self are later intellectually constructed.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman photo
Robin Williams photo

“We were talking briefly about cocaine…yeah. Anything that makes you paranoid and impotent, give me more of that!”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

A Night at the Met (1986)

Tom Stoppard photo

“Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.”

Tom Stoppard (1937) British playwright

1920s, Prejudices, Third Series (1922)

H.L. Mencken photo

“Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Source: 1920s, Prejudices, Third Series (1922), Ch. 14 "Types of Men" - 3 : The Believer
Source: Prejudices: Third Series

Paul Tillich photo
Edwin Abbott Abbott photo

“As to the doctrine of the Circles it may briefly be summed up in a single maxim, "Attend to your Configuration."”

Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART I: THIS WORLD, Chapter 12. Of the Doctrine of our Priests
Context: As to the doctrine of the Circles it may briefly be summed up in a single maxim, "Attend to your Configuration." Whether political, ecclesiastical, or moral, all their teaching has for its object the improvement of individual and collective Configuration — with special reference of course to the Configuration of the Circles, to which all other objects are subordinated.It is the merit of the Circles that they have effectually suppressed those ancient heresies which led men to waste energy and sympathy in the vain belief that conduct depends upon will, effort, training, encouragement, praise, or anything else but Configuration.

Andreas Vesalius photo
Jonathan Ames photo

Related topics