“Be brief, be pointed, let your matter stand
Lucid 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.”

—  Joseph Story

"Advice to a Young Lawyer", The American jurist and law magazine: Volume 5 (1831), p. 298.

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Joseph Story 10
US Supreme Court justice 1779–1845

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