“People write or speak sentences in order to produce an effect, and the success of a sentence is measured by the degree to which the desired effect has been achieved.”

&quot; On Cant and Hypocrisy http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/CantHypocrisy.htm&quot;, London Weekly Review, (6 December 1828) <br class="br">Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)

Pt. I, sec. 3, "The Principle of Economy Applied to Sentences"
The Philosophy of Style (1852)
Context: We have a priori reasons for believing that in every sentence there is some one order of words more effective than any other; and that this order is the one which presents the elements of the proposition in the succession in which they may be most readily put together.

Source: A Moveable Feast (1964), Ch. 2
Context: I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know."

Lecture on Modern Poetry (1914)

Source: Philosophical Papers (1979), p. 56.

Source: A Moveable Feast

Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 5, The Subordinate Style, p. 48

Source: Beyond This Horizon (1948; originally serialized in 1942), Chapter 14, “—and beat him when he sneezes”, p. 131