Brevity Quotes · Page 4

No weapons are more potent than brevity and simplicity.

— Katherine Cecil Thurston

A drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

— William Strunk, Jr

You evidently feel that brevity is the soul of widowhood.

— Hector Hugh Munro

“It's not my accent, but my brevity makes me stylish.”

— Amit Kalantri

[S]ince brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

— William Shakespeare

“We see our better selves in the eyes of those who love us. And there is a beauty that brevity provides.”

— Cassandra Clare

In the pleading of cases nothing pleases so much as brevity.

— Pliny the Younger

Brevity in writing is the best insurance for its perusal.

— Rudolf Virchow

“But brevity MAKES sweetness, doesn’t it? Yes, I think so. Because when the time is gone, you can never get it back.”

— Stephen King, 11/22/63

What can the redwoods tell us about ourselves? Well, I think they can tell us something about human time. The flickering, transitory…

— Richard Preston

“I have already made this paper too long, for which I must crave pardon, not having now time to make it shorter.”

— Benjamin Franklin

The land is not old. It only changes, becoming one thing and the next. We are the ones who ascribe age, the…

— Craig Childs

“But I hasten to finish my story. Brevity is justified at once to those who readily understand, and to those who will…

— George Eliot

“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter." ( Letter 16 , 1657)”

— Blaise Pascal

Trust the man who hesitates in his speech and is quick and steady in action, but beware of long arguments and long…

— George Santayana

Let my life as Poet begin. I want the life of the Poet. I have labored for over twelve years, one thousand…

— Maxine Hong Kingston

A form wherein we can enjoy simultaneously what is best in both the novel and the short story form. My plan was…

— Junot Diaz

[Six principles that make for a good story:] 1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful…

— Anton Chekhov

“Flowers remind me of the beauty and brevity of life. They teach patience as you await some to bloom, enhancing their beauty.…

— Sanjo Jendayi

“Why is a talkative person called a Chatty Cathy? That phrase possesses brevity, when someone verbose should instead be called a Chattering…

— Jarod Kintz

It is clear that a poem may be improperly brief. Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very short poem, while now…

— Edgar Allan Poe

I love story-writing because I can (more or less, on occasion) actually DO it. That's really the truth. I like the idea…

— George Saunders

I have a talent for silence and brevity. I can keep silent when it seems best to do so, and when I…

— Anonymous

He will see himself and life and the world as truly as our human limitations will permit; realizing the brevity and minuteness…

— Bertrand Russell

The brevity of human life gives a melancholy to the profession of the architect.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole, its body brevity, and wit its soul.

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

For the sake of brevity, we will always represent this number 2.718281828459... by the letter e.

— Leonhard Euler

Brevity and conciseness are the parents of correction…

— Hosea Ballou

If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought.

— Dennis Roch

Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.

— William Zinsser

Great captains do never use long orations when it comes to the point of execution.

— Philip Sidney

Every epigram should resemble a bee; it should have sting, honey, and brevity.

— Martial

“for in history there is nothing more pleasing than clear and brilliant brevity.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

If you can't explain something in a few words, try fewer.

— Robert Breault

This is going to take a while. I'm a fantasy author. We have trouble with the concept of brevity.

— Brandon Sanderson

Filter your pain through the brevity of this life and the unending beauty of the next.

— Max Lucado

“Grass of levity Span in brevity Flower's felicity Fire of misery Wind's stability Is mortality”

— compiled by John Timbs Anonymous

it is the brevity of life which makes it tolerable; its experiences have value because they have an end.

— Winifred Holtby

“Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.”

— Jean de La Bruyère