“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”
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Mark Twain 637
American author and humorist 1835–1910Related quotes
"The Promise of Words" in London Review of Books, Vol. 17, No. 17, p. 23
“Words rich in meaning can be cheap in sound effects.”
Simplicity http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21390/Simplicity
From the poems written in English
“Gestures, in love, are incomparably more attractive, effective and valuable than words.”
Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. II : The Fellow-Craft, p. 43
Context: Remember, that though life is short, Thought and the influences of what we do or say, are immortal; and that no calculus has yet pretended to ascertain the law of proportion between cause and effect. The hammer of an English blacksmith, smiting down an insolent official, led to a rebellion which came near being a revolution. The word well spoken, the deed fitly done, even by the feeblest or humblest, cannot help but have their effect. More or less, the effect is inevitable and eternal. The echoes of the greatest deeds may die away like the echoes of a cry among the cliffs, and what has been done seem to the human judgment to have been without result. The unconsidered act of the poorest of men may fire the train that leads to the subterranean mine, and an empire be rent by the explosion.
Message to the Inter-American Economic and Social Conference at Punta del Este, Uruguay (5 August 1961) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=8271
1961
The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)
Context: There are occasions when the simplest and fewest words surpass in effect all the wealth of rhetorical amplification. An example may be seen in the passage which has been a favourite illustration from the days of Longinus to our own. "God said: Let there be light! and there was light." This is a conception of power so calm and simple that it needs only to be presented in the fewest and the plainest words, and would be confused or weakened by any suggestion of accessories.
No Maps for These Territories (2000)
Context: All I knew about the word "cyberspace" when I coined it, was that it seemed like an effective buzzword. It seemed evocative and essentially meaningless. It was suggestive of something, but had no real semantic meaning, even for me, as I saw it emerge on the page.