"When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, it should be rejected"
About this Quote
Simplicity is doing quality control on your mind. Luc de Clapiers, better known as Vauvenargues, isn’t making a cute stylistic suggestion; he’s issuing a moral judgment about thinking itself. If an idea can’t survive the pressure test of plain speech, he argues, it’s not merely hard to communicate - it’s probably not worth having.
That’s a distinctly Enlightenment-era confidence move. Writing in a France where salons prized aphorism, clarity, and conversational thrust, Vauvenargues treats language as the public arena where ideas prove their legitimacy. Complexity can be real, but he’s suspicious of the kind that functions like camouflage: cloudy phrasing that protects a fragile thought from scrutiny. The subtext is a warning about rhetorical power. People who can’t defend their claims often retreat into ornament, technicality, or “nuance” as a shield. The sentence flips that dynamic: vagueness becomes evidence of failure, not sophistication.
It also contains a quiet discipline aimed at the writer. Rejecting a weak thought isn’t only about editing prose; it’s about editing ego. The line implies you don’t get to keep an idea just because you feel attached to it or because it sounds impressive. In a culture that still confuses difficulty with depth, Vauvenargues offers a bracing standard: if you can’t say it cleanly, you may not have earned the right to believe it.
That’s a distinctly Enlightenment-era confidence move. Writing in a France where salons prized aphorism, clarity, and conversational thrust, Vauvenargues treats language as the public arena where ideas prove their legitimacy. Complexity can be real, but he’s suspicious of the kind that functions like camouflage: cloudy phrasing that protects a fragile thought from scrutiny. The subtext is a warning about rhetorical power. People who can’t defend their claims often retreat into ornament, technicality, or “nuance” as a shield. The sentence flips that dynamic: vagueness becomes evidence of failure, not sophistication.
It also contains a quiet discipline aimed at the writer. Rejecting a weak thought isn’t only about editing prose; it’s about editing ego. The line implies you don’t get to keep an idea just because you feel attached to it or because it sounds impressive. In a culture that still confuses difficulty with depth, Vauvenargues offers a bracing standard: if you can’t say it cleanly, you may not have earned the right to believe it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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