Making a decision based on your gut reaction to a pithy quip is a very bad idea. Pithiness is a rhetorical technique, and hides misinformation as often as it e

Making a decision based on your gut reaction to a pithy quip is a very bad idea. Pithiness is a rhetorical technique, and hides misinformation as often as it emphasizes insight. Pithy quips emphasize cleverness of expression. The cleverness dazzles, and seduces the listener into agreement—but if you actually stand back and look at what they mean, they often fall down badly. Many very clever quips are shallow, meaningless, or just wrong, but they sound profound. People very often don't bother with the "thinking about it" step though, and the result is that pithiness helps spread a lot of silly notions.