Concise Expression Quotes

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.

Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You've got to go so far so fast in such a small space; you've got to burn away all the peripherals.

Whatever advice you give, be brief.

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

We know that he has, more than any other man, the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought.

The aphorism in which I am the first master among Germans, are the forms of 'eternity'; my ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book - what everyone else does not say in a book.

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

He who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike dumb the loquacious, is a genius or a hero.

Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences and paragraphs. It isn't about slickness. Simple and clear go a long way.

We don't communicate in full sentences anyway. We don't need all those words.

He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.

If I could sum it up in 50 words, I wouldn't have needed to write a whole novel about it.

It is a tiresome way of speaking, when you should despatch the business, to beat about the bush.

There is nothing more difficult to define than an aphorism.

I've always enjoyed mathematics. It is the most precise and concise way of expressing any idea.

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

The best sentence? The shortest.

To write simply is as difficult as to be good.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Be brief, be pointed, let your matter standLucid in order, solid and at hand;Spend not your words on trifles but condense;Strike with the mass of thought, not drops of sense;Press to close with vigor, once begun,And leave, (how hard the task!) leave off, when done.

If we’re going to solve the problems of the world, we have to learn how to talk to one another. Poetry is the language at its essence. It’s the bones and the skeleton of the language. It teaches you, if nothing else, how to choose your words.

I think that as you learn more about writing you learn to be direct.

What is required is not a lot words, but effectual ones.

Everything that can be said, can be said clearly.

The best writing has no lace on its sleeves.