Why should things be easy to understand?

I think the smartest people can explain things to a child. If you can’t explain it to a child, then you don’t know it. It’s a common saying and it’s very true.

Albert Einstein said, “If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

I can’t understand anything in general unless I’m carrying along in my mind a specific example and watching it go. Some people think in the beginning that I’m kind of slow and I don’t understand the problem, because I ask a lot of these “dumb” questions:

I would like to understand things better, but I don’t want to understand them perfectly.

The inability to explain something doesn't mean that it is inexplicable. … Always consider the simplest things first. … The inability to explain it doesn't mean that it has to be something fantastical or alien, or that it's unexplainable.

As everyone who has ever taught at the university level knows, being forced to explain complex ideas in simple terms is one of the best ways to deepen one’s understanding of these ideas. (2012)

Have you ever come across something you couldn't explain?"
"Explain in what way? I could explain a ghost by saying, 'yes, that's a ghost.' I take it that's not what you mean.

What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your own mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that’s really the essence of programming. By the time you’ve sorted out a complicated idea
into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you’ve certainly learned something about it yourself. The teacher usually learns more than the pupil. Isn’t that true?

"I'm afraid I'm not very good at understanding things like that." "You say that, but what you really mean is: 'I don't want to understand things like that.' " "It's true," she admitted.

Oh, I have a habit of letting myself be lectured on the things I know best. I like to see if they are understood in the same way I understand; for there are many ways of knowing the same thing

When you stop to think, the whole idea of comprehension has a faintly archaic taste, like the sound of forgotten tongues or a look into a Victorian camera obscura. We Americans are much higher on simple understanding. It makes it easier to read the billboards when you're heading into town on the expressway at plus-fifty. To comprehend, the mental jaws have to gape wide enough to make the tendons creak. Understanding, however, can be purchased on every paperback-book rack in America.

That was for me: I can’t understand anything in general unless I’m carrying along in my mind a specific example and watching it go.