Quintilian Quotes

Don't write so that you can be understood, write so that you can't be misunderstood.

The difficulty is not to write, but to write what you mean.

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

No blur of inexactness, no cloud of vagueness, is allowable in good writing; from the first seeing to the last putting down, there must be steady lucidity and uncompromise of purpose.

Hard writing makes easy reading.

Omit needless words.

Good writing does not come from verbiage but from words.

Brevity and conciseness are the parents of correction.

I love the right words. I think economy and precision of language are important.

Through an arbitrary problem, I had arrived at a tenet of good writing: brevity wins.

We find few disputes, that are not founded on some ambiguity in the expression [thereof].

People who want to express themselves effectively can learn a lot from the hard-won concision of the copywriter.

The more clearly you write, the more easily and surely you will be understood.

Easy writing makes hard reading.

To make yourself understood you have to think plain and write plain.

Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself might convey his notions to another, if, content to be understood, he did not seek to be admired.

Words, like glasses, obscure everything they do not make clear. Before using a fine word, make a place for it.

I think in most cases, unless you're writing about a character who is garrulous, you say what you've got to say and then get out. Those little conjunctions, those little turnaround words help you do it. That's the way I like to write: I get rid of things rather than add them.

The single most important lesson of effective communication is this: Focus on clarity. Concentrate on precisions. Don’t worry about constructing beautiful sentences. Beauty comes from meaning, not language. Accuracy is the most effective style of all.

Brevity in writing is the best insurance for its perusal.

Style means the right word. The rest matters little.

Multitudes of words are neither an argument of clear ideas in the writer, nor a proper means of conveying clear notions to the reader.

If an author be supposed to involve his thoughts in voluntary obscurity, and to obstruct, by unnecessary difficulties, a mind eager in the pursuit of truth; if he writes not to make others learned, but to boast the learning which he possesses himself, and wishes to be admired rather than understood, he counteracts the first end of writing, and justly suffers the utmost severity of censure, or the more afflicting severity of neglect.

a writer's first duty is to be clear. Clarity is an excellent virtue. Like all virtues it can be pursued at ruinous cost. Paid, so far as I am concerned, joyfully.

The best writing has no lace on its sleeves.