"Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer……" — Henry Watson Fowler
"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 to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance."
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Henry Watson Fowler
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10 Quotes by Henry Watson Fowler
Henry Watson Fowler has 10 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he allows himself to be tempted by the…
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The purpose of paragraphing is to give the reader a rest. The writer is saying . . . : Have…
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Be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.
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The writer's Queen Victoria is his public, and he would do well to keep a bust of the old Queen…
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Those who are addicted to the phrase "to use a vulgarism" expect to achieve the feat of being at once…
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It need hardly be said that shortness is a merit in words.
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Those who run to long words are mainly the unskillful and tasteless; they confuse pomposity with dignity, flaccidity with ease,…
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Quotation... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he…
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We tell our thoughts, like our children, to put on their hats and coats before they go out.
See all 10 quotes by Henry Watson Fowler »
More Abstract Quotes
This quote is filed under Abstract Quotes,
one of 741 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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To those who have exhausted politics, nothing remains but abstract thought.
— Honore de Balzac
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I was a really lousy artist as a kid. Too abstract expressionist; or I'd draw a big ram's head, really…
— Jean-Michel Basquiat
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In the abstract conception of universal wrong, all concrete responsibility vanishes.
— Theodor Adorno
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None of the abstract concepts comes closer to fulfilled utopia than that of eternal peace.
— Theodor Adorno
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Good science fiction is intelligent. It asks big questions that are on people's minds. It's not impossible. It has some…
— Nicolas Cage
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Science fiction is a way that I can go into the abstract, go into the imagination, and audiences are still…
— Nicolas Cage
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I am searching for abstract ways of expressing reality, abstract forms that will enlighten my own mystery.
— Eric Cantona
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Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.
— Al Capp
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Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change…
— Saul Alinsky
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'Woman on the Plaza,' with its distinct horizon, snow-like surfaces, wintry wall, stunning sunlight, sharp shadows, and hurrying figure, would…
— Sam Abell
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Old ideas give way slowly; for they are more than abstract logical forms and categories. They are habits, predispositions, deeply…
— John Dewey
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It is difficult to talk about fashion in the abstract, without a human body before my eyes, without drawings, without…
— Giorgio Armani
See all 741 Abstract Quotes »