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Thinking and Writing

2024-10-29

I recently read Writes and Write-Nots by Paul Graham, in which he emphasizes the significant of writing:

The reason is something I mentioned earlier: writing is thinking. In fact there’s a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing. You can’t make this point better than Leslie Lamport did:

If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking.

I like the sentence, but I wish to check Lamport really said that. By some searching, I can confirm it. It’s from his TLA+ slide in 2016, in which he said (How to Think ):

“Writing is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your thinking is.” Guindon

To think, you have to write.

If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking.


Thinking and Writing