#Conciseness Quotes

“Let the reader find that he cannot afford to omit any line of your writing because you you have omitted every word that he can spare.”

“I served with General Washington in die Legislature of Virginia...and...with Doctor Franklin in Congress. I never heard neither of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point.”

“All pleasantry should be short; and it might even be as well were the serious short also.”

“The best way to be boring is to include everything.”

“One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.”

“Never use two words when one will do.”

“No stile of writing is so delightful as that which is all pith, which never omits a necessary word, nor uses an unnecessary one.”

“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”

“Poetry teaches the enormous force of a few words, and, in proportion to the inspiration, checks loquacity.”

“Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?”

“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.”

“What are the proper proportions of a maxim? A minimum of sound to a maximum of sense.”

“A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.”

“I always feel that whatever isn't necessary shouldn't be in a poem.”

“It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.”

“Be brief on the logic and reason portion of your presentation. There are probably about a thousand facts about an automobile, but you don't need them all to make a decision. About a half dozen will do.”

“As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.”

“If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out”

“I am trying to make, before I get through, a picture of the whole world--or as much of it as I have seen. Boiling it down always, rather than spreading it out too thin. (On Writing.)”

“it wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short.”

“As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing.”

“He who can properly summarize many ideas in a brief statement, is a wise man.”

“It wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, of physics.”

“In speaking, it is best to be clear and say just enough to convey the meaning.”

“So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.”

“Shorth is better than length.”

“It has often been said there’s so much to be read, you never can cram all those words in your head. So the writer who breeds more words than he needs is making a chore for the reader who reads. That's why my belief is the briefer the brief is, the greater the sigh of the reader's relief is. And that's why your books have such power and strength. You publish with shorth! (Shorth is better than length.)”

“I was reading this James Bond book, and right away I realized that, like most books, it had too many words.”

“Reverend Fathers, my letters did not usually follow each other at such close intervals, nor were they so long.... This one would not be so long had I but the leisure to make it shorter.”

“If I had more time I would write a shorter letter.”

“I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”

“A word too much always defeats its purpose.”