Specific, definite, concrete Prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract. William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White, The Elements of Style examples
You cannot consume what is not produced The only law of economics that I believe in is Hamming’s law: “You cannot consume what is not produced.” There is not another single reliable law in all of economics I know of which is not either a tautology in mathematics or else sometimes false. Richard Hamming, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn Scientific writing economics