Quotes about brevity

Brevity and conciseness are the parents of correction.

— Hosea Ballou

There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together.

— Josh Billings

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

— Marcus T. Cicero

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

— Marcus T. Cicero

Never be so brief as to become obscure.

— Tryon Edwards

The more you say, the less people remember. The fewer the words, the greater the profit.

— Francois FeNelon

Good things, when short, are twice as good.

— Baltasar Gracian

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.

— Ernest Hemingway

I strive to be brief, and I become obscure.

— Horace

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

— Thomas Jefferson

It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth into a liar -- that I call an achievement.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

The fewer the words, the better the prayer.

— Martin Luther

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

— Friedrich Nietzsche

If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams -- the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.

— Robert Southey

I will be brief. Not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the world's shortest speech. He said I will be so brief I have already finished, and he sat down.

— Edward O. Wilson

. . . since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

— William Shakespeare