Effective 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.

Words in a person's word stock are like paints on a palette. It helps to have just the right shade when you need it.

It is not enough that a man has clearness of vision, and reliance on sincerity, he must also have the art of expression, or he will remain obscure.

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

He who thinks much says but little in proportion to his thoughts. He selects that language which will convey his ideas in the most explicit and direct manner.

An apt aphorism half kills, half immortalizes.

Let us never underestimate the power of a well-written letter.

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

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

It is not sufficient to know what one ought to say, but one must also know how to say it.

Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.

... when we are misunderstood it is always our own fault. What the reader wants most of all is to be able to grasp what we think; but you loftily refuse to comply.

Words are humanity's greatest natural resource, but most of us have trouble figuring out how to put them together. Words aren't cheap. They are very precious. They are like water, which gives life and growth and refreshment, but because it has always been abundant, we treat it cheaply. We waste it; we pollute it, and doctor it. Later we blame the quality of the water because we have misused it.

We can say of Shakespeare, that never has a man turned so little knowledge to such great account.

To many men well-fitting doors are not set on their tongues.

What is conceived well is expressed clearly.

Whatever one wishes to say, there is one noun only by which to express it, one verb only to give it life, one adjective only which will describe it. One must search until one has discovered them, this noun, this verb, this adjective, and never rest content with approximations, never resort to trickery, however happy, or to vulgarism, in order to dodge the difficulty.

We have a language that is full of ambiguities; we have a way of expressing ourselves that is often complex and elusive, poetic and modulated; all our thoughts can be rendered with absolute clarity if we bother to put the right dots and squiggles between the words in the right places. Proper punctuation is both the sign and the cause of clear thinking. If it goes, the degree of intellectual impoverishment we face is unimaginable.

I'm a good storyteller.

Eloquence is the art of saying as little as possible but making it sound as much as possible.

Common experience is the gold reserve which confers an exchange value on the currency which words are; without this reserve of shared experiences, all our pronouncements are checks drawn on insufficient funds.

For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.

Every guy should be the owner of a really nice pen. When you put your thoughts down, or whenever you're going to share something with someone, it means something if it bleeds out in a nice ink.