Impossible to be misunderstood

Quintilian

Back in my college days, in a Survey of Spanish Literature class, I discovered the Spanish author Azorín, who would become one of my favorite writers. A sentence he wrote about how to write became my watchword:

No basta hacerse entender; es necesario aspirar a no poder dejar de ser entendido.

It is not enough to make yourself understandable, it is necessary to aspire to be unable to be misunderstood.

More recently, I’ve been studying Latin (you never know when you’ll need to summon a demon), and I came upon this quote by Quintilian, a Roman educator whose lessons have never been forgotten:

Quare non, ut intelligere possit, sed, ne omnino possit non intelligere, curandum.

It is not enough to use language that may be understood, but to use language that must be understood.

Down a rabbit hole, I discovered that this sentence comes from Quintilian’s discussion of strategies of persuasion, in particular how to persuade someone who may be distracted while you speak. His advice has been an inspiration to many people right up to our own 21st century. Apparently Azorín came upon it somehow, and it inspired him, too.

However, I later came upon a corollary that has proven to be true uncountable times, sadly — so good luck out there:

Anything that can be misunderstood has been misunderstood.