Brevity Quotes

“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter."

(Letter 16,1657)”
― Blaise Pascal, The Provincial Letters

“It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.”
― Robert Frost, Birches

“The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory

“When we fully understand the brevity of life, its fleeting joys and unavoidable pains; when we accept the facts that all men and women are approaching an inevitable doom: the consciousness of it should make us more kindly and considerate of each other. This feeling should make men and women use their best efforts to help their fellow travelers on the road, to make the path brighter and easier as we journey on. It should bring a closer kinship, a better understanding, and a deeper sympathy for the wayfarers who must live a common life and die a common death.”
― Clarence Darrow, The Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow

“Be sincere, Be brief, Be seated.”
― Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“Like all sweet dreams, it will be brief, but brevity makes sweetness, doesn't it?”
― Stephen King, 11/22/63

“The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible.”
― George Burns

“Writing is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent elimination.”
― Louise Brooks

“This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don't understand very much about what they do -- not why it works when it's good, not why it doesn't when it's bad. I figured the shorter the book, the less bullshit."
Stephen King, On Writing”
― Stephen King

“My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Against the censurers of brevity. - Something said briefly can be the fruit of much long thought: but the reader who is a novice in this field, and has as yet reflected on it not at all, sees in everything said briefly something embryonic, not without censuring the author for having served him up such immature and unripened fare.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits

“Life is too short to stuff a mushroom.”
― Shirley Conran

“We have deemed all these words necessary in order to explain that we have been traveling more slowly than was predicted, concision is not a definitive virtue, on occasion one loses out by talking too much, it is true, but how much has also been gained by saying more than was strictly necessary.”
― José Saramago, The Stone Raft

“To write good poems is the secret of brevity.”
― Dejan Stojanovic

“Why is a talkative person called a Chatty Cathy? That phrase possesses brevity, when someone verbose should instead be called a Chattering Catherine. Cathy talks so much and manages to say nothing. She could learn from ducks, who speak only one word, quack, but say everything.”
― Jarod Kintz, Music is fluid, and my saxophone overflows when my ducks slosh in the sounds I make in elevators.

“The definition of Brevity: That which people believe would be a virtue - in me!”
― Greg Curtis

“Bear all things with brevity.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Flowers remind me of the beauty and brevity of life. They teach patience as you await some to bloom, enhancing their beauty. And then they're gone.

Moral of this story: Enjoy every single second of this life. Embrace the beautiful parts, don't stress the areas awaiting to bloom...enjoy the process. We are but a breath, so treasure each one.”
― Sanjo Jendayi

“The words are few, and the sentence short; no one in Scripture so short. But it fareth withSentencesas withcoynes:In coines, they that in smallest compasse conteine greatest value, are best esteemed: and, in sentences, those that in fewest words comprise most matter, are most praised. Which, as of all sentences it is true; so specially of those that are marked withMemento.In them, the shorter the better; the better, and the better carried away, and the better kept; and the better called for when we need it. And such is this here; of rich contents, and with all exceeding compendious: So that, we must needs be without all excuse, it being but three words, and but five syllables, if we doe not remember it.”
― Lancelot Andrewes, Lancelot Andrewes: Selected Sermons and Lectures

“You can say too much without talking too much.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“The brevity of life is grace of God.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“The brevity of life is a grace from God.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Poems and epitaphs are but stuff,
Here lies Bob Barras and that's enough.”
― Richard De'Ath, TOMBSTONE Humour, Or, The Coffin That Carried Them Off In]

“Omission is not brevity.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“The peak is the exact moment when it takes courage to change. Forgetting that nothing is permanent is like throwing yourself into the sea of ​​failure.”
― Vinícius Montgomery de Miranda

“The brevity of life is to be yourself.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“But brevity MAKES sweetness, doesn’t it? Yes, I think so. Because when the time is gone, you can never get it back.”
― Stephen King, 11/22/63

“After a brief moment of splendour, the whole enterprise too a sad turn.”
― Bruno Schulz, Nocturnal Apparitions: Essential Stories