Quotes About Precision

Fletcher was the instigator of a fad for extremely thorough chewing. We are not talking about British Prime Minister William Gladstone's thirty-two chews per bite. We are talking about this: "One-fifth of an ounce of the midway section of the young garden onion, sometimes called 'challot,' has required seven hundred and twenty-two mastications before disappearing through involuntary swallowing." (More on chewing and the "oral device" in chapter 7.)

It's hard to say where is the bigger hubris, in their convictions or in the arrogance of carrying them to a third decimal point

Sometimes I have endeavoured to discover what quality it is which he possesses that elevates him so immeasurably above any other person I ever knew. I believe it to be an intuitive discernment, a quick but never-failing power of judgment, a penetration into the causes of things, unequalled for clearness and precision; add to this a facility of expression and a voice whose varied intonations are soul-subduing music.

There is nothing that requires more precision, and purity of expression, than to write in a familiar style,' as the great English essayist William Hazlitt put it nearly two hundred years ago. 'To write as anyone would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity...' To me these are the cardinal virtues of strong, convincing English prose.

His features had the fine precision of sculpture. His hair was black and straight, swept back. The suntan of his skin intensified the startling color of his eyes: they were a pure, clear blue. His face was open, its rapid changes of expression reflecting whatever he felt, as if he had nothing to hide. The blue eyes were still and changeless, never giving a hint of what he thought.

Her face was made of angular planes, the shape of her mouth clear-cut, a sensual mouth held closed with inflexible precision. She kept her hands in the coat pockets, her posture taut, as if she resented immobility...

Free scientific inquiry? The first adjective is redundant.

the only sin on earth was to do things badly.

fastidiousness

Her body, sagging limply from her shoulders, contradicted the inflexible precision of the legs; the cold austerity of her face contradicted the pose of her body.

What I would say to my successor is that it is important not just to shoot but to aim

That's what science is about: seeing the exact same things that other people do, finding the units of measurement with which to describe those things, communicating in the fewest and most precise words available. What could be saner—or more sociable—than that?

As Benjamin Disraeli said, It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.

First was the fewer, not less. Now it was the care in avoiding a preposition at the end of a sentence. An educated man, presumably. Precise. Apparently fussy about small-minded rules, perhaps to compensate for a willingness to ignore large ones.

steel Jaeger-Lecoultre Reverso Grande Taille

Only literary cultures have a concern for exact replication of the facts "as they really are.

When composing a verse let there not be a hair's breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.

The carpenter's rule is "measure twice, cut once.

A sniper is like a genius - it's not enough to be one, you have to be one at something.

Los mejores planes suelen ser los más sencillos

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.1

Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left. —KRUG'S THIRD LAW OF USABILITY Of

Designing, building, and maintaining a great Web site or app isn't easy. It's like golf: a handful of ways to get the ball in the hole, a million ways not to.

The dictionary is a perfect example of overalphabetization, with its harsh rules and every little word neatly in place. It almost makes me want to go on a diet of grapes and waste away to nothing.