The Quotes canon
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Every quote has been curated by hand and carefully authenticated.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Blaise Pascal1 quote
When we see a natural style, we are quite surprised and delighted, for we expected to see an author and we find a man. — Blaise Pascal · 1662George Orwell1 quote
Good prose is like a windowpane. — George Orwell · 1946Henry David Thoreau1 quote
A sentence should read as if its author, had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end. — Henry David Thoreau · 1849Jonathan Swift1 quote
Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of a style. — Jonathan Swift · 1720Ralph Waldo Emerson1 quote
A good writer seems to be writing about himself, (but never is,) but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself, & all things. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1867W. Somerset Maugham1 quote
Words have weight, sound, and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a sentence that is good to look at and good to listen to. — W. Somerset Maugham · 1948William Strunk, Jr.1 quote
Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subject only in outline, but that every word tell. — William Strunk, Jr. · 1919