Henry Watson Fowler Quotes

10 quotes in 179 categories

• Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be…
• The purpose of paragraphing is to give the reader a rest. The writer is saying . . . : Have you got that? If so,…
• Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word…
• Be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.
• The writer's Queen Victoria is his public, and he would do well to keep a bust of the old Queen on his desk with the…
• Those who are addicted to the phrase "to use a vulgarism" expect to achieve the feat of being at once vulgar and superior to vulgarity.
• It need hardly be said that shortness is a merit in words.
• Those who run to long words are mainly the unskillful and tasteless; they confuse pomposity with dignity, flaccidity with ease, and bulk with force.
• Quotation... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he can give it himself, or…
• We tell our thoughts, like our children, to put on their hats and coats before they go out.

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