“People think that I can teach them style. What stuff it all is! Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style.”

—  Matthew Arnold

G.W.E. Russell, Collections and Recollections, ch. XIV, Harper &amp; brothers, 1898, p. 136 https://archive.org/details/collectionsandr02russgoog/page/n152. Russell states that was said to him by Arnold himself. <br class="br">Attributed

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "People think that I can teach them style. What stuff it all is! Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can…" by Matthew Arnold?
Matthew Arnold photo
Matthew Arnold166
English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector… 1822–1888

Related quotes

“Underneath all his writing there is the settled determination to use certain words, to take certain attitudes, to produce a certain atmosphere; what he is seeing or thinking or feeling has hardly any influence on the way he writes. The reader can reply, ironically, "That's what it means to have a style"; but few people have so much of one, or one so obdurate that you can say of it, "It is a style that no subject can change."”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

"Recent Poetry," The Yale Review (Autumn 1955) [p. 237]
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Sam Brown photo

“Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.”

Sam Brown (1943) American diplomat

The Washington Post (26 January 1977)

John Rogers Searle photo

“Where questions of style and exposition are concerned I try to follow a simple maxim: if you can’t say it clearly you don’t understand it yourself.”

John Rogers Searle (1932) American philosopher

Source: Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind (1983), P. x.

Ernest Hemingway photo

“I might say that what amateurs call a style is usually only the unavoidable awkwardnesses in first trying to make something that has not heretofore been made.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Paris Review interview (1958)

Wassily Kandinsky photo

“Frankly, I think there is something wrong with Jawlensky's dots [in his paintings, then]. Anybody can pick up that style if they want to.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Quote of Kandinsky, c 1903; as cited by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 114
1910 - 1915

“I always say I'm an escape artist, Style is something I've always tried to avoid. I'm more interested in character. Character comes out of the work. Style is applied or imposed on it.”

Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989) American painter

in 'Sketches for a Series', interview with art-critic Rose Slivka; as quoted in 'Elaine de Kooning, Artist and Teacher, Dies at 68', New York Times, Grace Glueck, February 2, 1989
1972 - 1989

“I think if you've got something to say and you can say it with less, that's the way to go.”

Philip Ó Ceallaigh (1968) Irish writer

Notes from a library bar (2006)

Paul Simon photo

“Some people never say those words "I love you".
It's not their style to be so bold.
Some people never say those words "I love you".
But like a child, they're longing to be told.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Something So Right
Song lyrics, There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973)

Related topics