David Trimble Quotes

There has to be certainty and there has to be clarity. There can't be ambiguity, .. This has to be certain, clear in all respects from all the parties so nobody is in any doubt about what the future holds.

Screw ambiguity. Perversion and corruption masquerade as ambiguity. I don't trust ambiguity. John Wayne

Never be so brief as to become obscure.

I often want things to make definite statements. If I order onions sliced thinly on my hamburger, I don't want them to come out sort of medium. But that doesn't mean it's a reasonable desire, in all things.

When I am perfectly clear, what is is what I want.

People like definite decisions, / Tidy answers, all the little ravelings / Snipped off, the lint removed, they / Hop happily among their roughs / Calling what they can't clutch insanity / Or saintliness.

It takes courage and skill to be unambiguous and clear.

But why, why, why can't people just say what they mean?

Between the demand to be clear,and the temptation to be obscure, impossible to decide which deserves more respect.

The signals we give-yes or no, or maybe-/should be clear/the darkness around us is deep.

If we are ready to tolerate everything as understood, there is nothing left to explain; while if we sourly refuse to take anything, even tentatively, as clear, no explanation can be given.

I want to be transparent, so I don't leave room for too much thinking.

It is... easy to be certain. One has only to be sufficiently vague.

Clarity is the most important thing to me - in thinking - and so I try in the books to be as clear as possible.

I will reach out to others and explain why I make the decisions I make.

The Public ... demands certainties ... But there are not certainties

Remember that the future is neither ours nor wholly not ours, so that we may neither count on it as sure to come nor abandon hope of it as certain not to be.

Those who don't say what they mean will live and die by their own sword.

What was it up there in the song that seemed to be calling her back inside? What would happen now in the dim, incalculable hours?

Il n'est pas certain que tout soit incertain. (Translation: It is not certain that everything is uncertain.)

Why do you say vague things if you don't want to be asked about them?

After all we speak of people 'taking refuge' in vagueness -the more precise you are, in general the more likely you are to be wrong, whereas you stand a good chance of not being wrong if you make it vague enough.

It's easy to judge, to think we know for certain the right thing to do. Sometimes, it just isn't so clear.

Doubt is long-winded. Certainty is brief.

Aiming at brevity, I become obscure.