Hosea Ballou Quotes

I strive to be brief but I become obscure.

In labouring to be concise, I become obscure.

I strive to be brief, and I become obscure.

It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure.

I labor to be brief, and manage to be obscure.

Aiming at brevity, I become obscure.

But the shortest works are always the best.

Conciseness is underrated

Never be so brief as to become obscure.

When I struggle to be terse, I end by being obscure.

If you would be pungent, be brief.

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation.

Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.

Be brief. Above all things be brief.

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.

There are occasions when the simplest and fewest words surpass in effect all the wealth of rhetorical amplification.

If you can't be smart or funny, be brief.

My stories are very compact. I want them to say the most complex things in the simplest way.

The perfection of style consists in the use of the exact speech necessary to convey the sense in the fewest words consistent with perspicuity, at the same time having regard to appropriateness and harmony of expression. Its greater excellencies are directness, accuracy, appropriateness and perspicuity.

To be brief is almost a condition of being inspired.

There's a fine line in being too specific so you can't be too flexible, and being too vague in being specific and people not thinking it's meaningful.

You don't need many words if you already know what you're talking about.

Writing is learning to say nothing, more cleverly each day.

I use circumlocution too often, and instead of getting my point across, I tend to babble.