
“We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.”
Letter to John Adams (1774)
Source: The Last Slice of Rainbow and Other Stories
“We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.”
Letter to John Adams (1774)
“5037. Three are too many to keep a Secret, and too few to be merry.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
72
Essays in Idleness (1967 Columbia University Press, Trns: Donald Keene)
“How many unuttered words died in the heads of those for whom a word was too expensive.”
“Unuttered Words,” p. 59
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “A Stone and a Word”
“Vampire? Such a provocative word, wrapped in too many clichés and girly novels.”
Source: The Radleys
"Here, early to bed, lies kind William Maginn" (1842), line 19; cited from R. Shelton Mackenzie (ed.) The Fraserian Papers of the Late William Maginn (New York: Redfield, 1857) p. cviii.
“Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas.”
Letter to Mrs. Blumberg (27 September 1977)
Source: The 80/20 principle: the secret of achieving more with less (1999), p. 142