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Brevity Quotes

Brevity may be the soul of wit, but not when someone’s saying “I love you.”
~Judith Viorst

Spartans, stoics, heroes, saints and gods use short and positive speech.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.
~Robert Southey

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

My great-grandfather used to say to his wife, my great-grandmother, who in turn told her daughter, my grandmother, who repeated it to her daughter, my mother, who used to remind her daughter, my own sister, that to talk well and eloquently was a very great art, but that an equally great one was to know the right moment to stop. ~Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.
~Cicero

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

A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
~William Strunk, Jr.

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

If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought. ~Dennis Roth

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

In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style.
~Sydney Smith

There’s a great power in words, if you don’t hitch too many of them together.
~Josh Billings

He replies nothing but monosyllables. I believe he would make three bites of a cherry.
~Rabelais

The fewer the words, the better the prayer.
~Martin Luther

Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
~Dorothy Parker

There’s a great power in words, if you don’t hitch too many of them together.
~Josh Billings

Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in few words.
~Bible

Good things, when short, are twice as good.
~Baltasar Gracian

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what other men say in whole books – what other men do not say in whole books.
~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

If you can’t write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don’t have a clear idea.
~David Belasco

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

Brevity and conciseness are the parents of correction.
~Hosea Ballou

Talk low, talk slow, and don’t say too much.
~John Wayne

I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short.
~Blaise Pascal

Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there.
~Branch Rickey

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