Quotes About Clarity

Stars and shadows ain't good to see by.

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.

It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it's the parts that I do understand.

When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them--then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are far apart.

To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...Anybody can have ideas--the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.

Homely truth is unpalatable.

If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loudly. Do not compound mispronunciation with inaudibility

Let us consider that we are all insane. It will explain us to each other. It will unriddle many riddles

The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.

Don't explain your author, read him right and he explains himself.

Children and fools always speak the truth.

Eschew surplusage.

When in doubt, tell the truth.

You cannot trust your eyes, if your imagination is out of focus.

Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.

S'pose a man was to come to you and say Pollyvoo-franzy - what would you think?

I don't have time to write you a short letter, so I'm writing you a long one instead.

I can help anyone get anything they want out of life. The only problem is that I can't find anyone who knows what they want.

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug (Mark Twain)

Cuando recordamos que todos somos locos, la vida queda explicada

Anybody can have ideas—the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between the lightening and the lightening bug.

The difference between the ALMOST right word and the RIGHT word is really quite a large matter. It's the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

Ich würde von jedermann, ob hoch oder niedrig, verlangen, dass er mir einfach und geradezu mit dem kommt, was er mir erzählen will, oder aber seine Geschichte zusammenrollt und sich darauf setzt und Ruhe gibt. Übertretungen dieses Gesetzes müssten mit dem Tode bestraft werden.