“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.” Continue reading
Category Archives: Literature
William Shakespeare on Honesty
“Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.” Continue reading
Jules Renard on Literature
“Literature is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none.” Continue reading
Samuel Johnson on Writing
“Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.” Continue reading
Samuel Johnson on Literature
“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.” Continue reading
An English Professor on Writing
“I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top.” Continue reading
Christopher Morley on Imagination
“Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.” Continue reading
Victor Hugo on Society
“There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.” Continue reading
Paul Dirac on Science and Poetry
“In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it’s the exact opposite.” Continue reading
Philip G. Hamerton on Quotations
“Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?” Continue reading
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