Quotes About Conciseness

Reverend Fathers, my letters do not customarily follow one another so closely, nor are they usually so extensive. The little time I have had has caused both. I have made this one longer only because I have not had the leisure of making it shorter.

Only the superfluous is sordid

Brevity in writing is what charity is to all other virtues — righteousness is nothing without the one, nor authorship without the other.

Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there.

For me, a great joke is an idea expressed in extremely concentrated form.

Less is only more where more is no good.

When speaking, be sincere, be brief, and be seated.

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a whole book—what everyone else does not say in a whole book.

What philosophy has lacked most of all is precision.

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short." [ Letter to Harrison Blake ; November 16, 1857]

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

It takes less time to do a thing right than explain why you did it wrong....

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

I'm sorry for writing you a four-page letter. I did not have time to write you a one-page letter.

To his ear, of course, she suffered some from that malady of her generation- an almost laconic indifference toward speaking concisely- a circling and avoidance of linguistic specificity that bordered on a verbal form of shoulder-shrugging.

If you can't say in one sentence what you are trying to accomplish, then you won't achieve it.

Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left.

Captain," said Khaavren, both by way of affirmation and correction, thus conveying the maximum amount of information in the fewest possible words; a custom of his, and one that this historian has, in fact, adopted for himself, holding efficiency of language to be a high virtue in all written works without exception.

as is well known, it is those with the least to say who use the most words, which is why, as the reader has no doubt observed, this historian endeavors, without exception, to limit his use of words to the absolute minimum required to successfully convey the desired thought.

if you're writing a memo or e-mail and begin a middle paragraph, "Most important …" you've written a bad memo or e-mail.

Be precise. A lack of precision is dangerous when the margin of error is small.

I seem to be drawn to these smaller forms, and I seem to be drawn to things that can be written and also read in one sitting.

Say only what you mean.

I always listen to what I can leave out.