If you can't say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you can.
Interpretation
Communicate your thoughts clearly, or refrain from speaking until you can.
This quote emphasizes the importance of clear communication and suggests that if you are unable to express your ideas in a simple and understandable way, you should refrain from speaking until you have refined your thoughts. It encourages continuous improvement in how we articulate our ideas, indicating that clarity is vital for effective communication.
In practice
This quote could inspire speakers at a conference to ensure their messages are clear and accessible.
The growth of our knowledge is the result of a process closely resembling what Darwin called 'natural selection'; that is, the natural selection of hypotheses: our knowledge consists, at every moment, of those hypotheses which have shown their (comparative) fitness by surviving so far in their struggle for existence, a competitive struggle which eliminates those hypotheses which are unfit.
No particular theory may ever be regarded as absolutely certain.... No scientific theory is sacrosanct.
The belief in a political Utopia is especially dangerous. This is possibly connected with the fact that the search for a better world, like the investigation of our environment, is (if I am correct) one of the oldest and most important of all the instincts.
A rationalist is simply someone for whom it is more important to learn than to be proved right; someone who is willing to learn from others - not by simply taking over another's opinions, but by gladly allowing others to criticize his ideas and by gladly criticizing the ideas of others
Thus science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths; neither with the collection of observations, nor with the invention of experiments, but with the critical discussion of myths, and of magical techniques and practices.
I am opposed to looking upon logic as a kind of game. ... One might think that it is a matter of choice or convention which logic one adopts. I disagree with this view.
I have lost stories and many starts of novels before. Not always as punishment for 'telling,' but more often as a result of something having gone cold and dead because of a hiatus. Telling, you see, is the same as a hiatus. It means you're not doing it.
Poverty is uncomfortable; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim.
And although she was sometimes dissatisfied with herself, she felt unable to go beyond her own limitations. Books were safer.
When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable
There is something suspect about our inability to enjoy anything.
Now, five years is nothing in a man's life except when he is very young and very old... - Wang Lung
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