David Gemmell book Legend
Source: Drenai series, Legend, Pt 1: Against the Horde, Ch. 23
Source: Men Explain Things to Me
David Gemmell book Legend
Source: Drenai series, Legend, Pt 1: Against the Horde, Ch. 23
Daniel Levitin book The Organized Mind
The Organized Mind (2014)
Context: It's not just that we remember things wrongly, but we don't even know we're remembering them wrongly, doggedly insisting that the inaccuracies are in fact true.
“These things cannot be explained in detail. From one thing, know ten thousand things.”
Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist
Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Ground Book
Context: These things cannot be explained in detail. From one thing, know ten thousand things. When you attain the Way of strategy there will not be one thing you cannot see. You must study hard.
“The reasons why I do things are difficult for me to understand and difficult for me to explain.”
Vincent Gallo (1961) American film director, writer, model, actor and musician
Another Man Essay
“I don't think any word can explain a man's life.”
Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer
Source: Citizen Kane
Henry Spira (1927–1998) American activist
Context: It was very dispiriting because a lot of things needed to be done. One of the things that happened was, if you had a good rank-and-file activist in a trade union situation, they would make them an offer to become part of the staff—at which point the person was totally lost to the campaign where they were a catalyst and became part of an apparatus that was basically going nowhere. The odd thing is, despite The Permanent Revolution being on the bookshelves, they would explain everything by going back and finding a quote from Trotsky or from Lenin in order to explain things, as opposed to explaining how things were in the real world.... They were basically just living in their own universe as opposed to making real life connections.
“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see.”
Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead
Variant: The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see
Source: The Fountainhead
William Hope Hodgson book The Night Land
Source: The Night Land (1912), Chapter 13
“There are many things in life that cannot be explained.”
Anthony Horowitz book Nightrise
Source: Nightrise