The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Literature

Excerpt: ''Obscurity and vagueness of expression are at all times and everywhere a very bad sign. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they arise from vagueness of thought, which, in its turn, is almost always fundamentally discordant, inconsistent, and therefore wrong. When a right thought springs up in the mind it strives after clearness of expression, and it soon attains it, for clear thought easily finds its appropriate expression.''

Being myself a musician and trained in nada yoga, that is, the yoga of sound, I recently started reading a short book on listening by a French philosopher and aesthetician in the postmodern tradition. The language was so convoluted and chock-full of double negatives, qualifications, obscure language and multiple references, I almost felt like shouting, ‘My good man, if you have something insightful to say, kindly say it!’''