Short Words Quotes

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

Vincent Van Gogh

Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

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When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you till it seems as if you could n't hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that 's just the place and time that the tide'll turn.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Inspirational, Motivational, Strength

"Old Town Folks". Book by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Chapter 39, p. 507, 1869.

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Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Inspirational, Motivational, Moving On

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1896). “Oldtown folks. Sam Lawson's Oldtown fireside stories”

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No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Inspirational, Motivational, Happiness

Quoted in Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 7 June 1941 See Channing 1

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If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined...

Henry David Thoreau

Inspirational, Life, Motivational

"Walden". Book by Henry David Thoreau, 1854.

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The short words are best, and the old words, when short, are the best of all.

Winston Churchill

Shortness

"The Proverbial Winston S. Churchill: An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Sir Winston Churchill".

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He should have known better because, early in his learnings under his brother Mahmoud, he had discovered that long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings, but short words were slippery, unpredictable changing their meanings without any pattern. Or so he seemed to grok. Short human words were never like a short Martian word - such as grok which forever meant exactly the same thing. Short human words were like trying to lift water with a knife. And this had been a very short word.

Robert A. Heinlein

Brother, Should Have, Knives

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I owe a quenchless debt to him who bade me seize my fate And hang it on the faith that I to it was adequate For when he said -you're on your own- and sauntered on away I knew that here, in four short words, was youth-s first judgment day Not wit to learn, not test of skill, not pride to satisfy, But will to walk down life in faith that life is theirs who try.

Gill Robb Wilson

Fate, Pride, Skills

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... I think that I was too self-centered to ever develop good skills as a peacemaker. In my younger days, I assumed that it was because I was smarter than everyone else, with no patience for explaining things in short words for mouthbreathers who just didn't get it.

Cory Doctorow

Thinking, Self, Skills

Cory Doctorow (2015). “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom”, p.75, Booklassic

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I'll tell thee what it says; it calls me villain, a treacherous husband, a cruel father, a false brother; one lost to nature and her charities; or to say all in one short word, it calls me - Gamester.

George Edward Moore

Brother, Husband, Father

"The Gamester", Act II, scene 1, as quoted Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations, p. 306-07, 1922.

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Fortunately, I knew the cardinal rule of getting on with one's fellow cooks. It applies in any kitchen and can be summed up in two short words: bust ass.

Jacques Pepin

Two, Kitchen, Ass

Jacques Pepin (2004). “The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen”, p.154, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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There are some simple maxims which I think might be commended to writers of expository prose. First: never use a long word if a short word will do. So, if you want to make a statement with a great many qualifications, put some of the qualifications in separate sentences. Third: do not let the beginning of your sentence lead the reader to an expectation which is contradicted by the end.

Bertrand Russell

Simple, Thinking, Long

Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.37, Routledge

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Each life is one short word slowly uttered.

Louise Erdrich

Life, Life Is

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"On my honor" - what an ennobling phrase! Three short words, nine letters, but the summation of all we call character. From the Boy Scout's Oath.

Ezra Taft Benson

Character, Boys, Honor

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To love very much is to love inadequately; we love-that is all. Love cannot be modified without being nullified. Love is a short word but it contains everything. Love means the body, the soul, the life, the entire being. We feel love as we feel the warmth of our blood, we breathe love as we breathe the air, we hold it in ourselves as we hold our thoughts. Nothing more exists for us. Love is not a word; it is a wordless state indicated by four letters.

Guy de Maupassant

Love, Mean, Air

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Depending on the inflection, ah bon can express shock, disbelief, indifference, irritation, or joy - a remarkable achievment for two short words.

Peter Mayle

Two, Irritation, Joy

FaceBook post by Peter Mayle from Jun 30, 2013

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Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.

Henry Watson Fowler

Long, Romance, Abstract

Henry Watson Fowler, Francis George Fowler (1931). “The King's English”, Oxford University Press

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The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur in proportion to the education and rank.

William Zinsser

Writing, Long, Secret

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I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English―it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them―then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.

Mark Twain

Flower, Writing, Mean

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If, as I suspect, my body survives by uttering itself over and over again, then I have some questions. If [I] am one word, so are my daughters, so are all of us in strings and loops. Each life is one short word slowly uttered.

Louise Erdrich

Daughter, Body, Life Is

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To knot a sentence up properly, it has to be thought out carefully, and revised. New phrases have to be put in; sudden changes of subject must be introducted; verbs must be shifted to unsuspected localities; short words must be excised with ruthless hand; archaisms must be sprinkled like sugar-plums upon the concoction; the fatal human tendency to say things straightforwardly must be detected and defeated by adroit reversals; and, if a glimmer of meaning yet remain under close scrutiny, it must be removed by replacing all the principal verbs by paraphrases in some dead language.

Aleister Crowley

Hands, Plums, Verbs

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Long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings . . . but short words were slippery, unpredictable, changing their meanings without any pattern.

Robert A. Heinlein

Long, Patterns, Easy

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So Mo began filling the silence with words. He lured them out of the pages as if they had only been waiting for his voice, words long and short, words sharp and soft, cooing, purring words. They danced through the room, painting stained glass pictures, tickling the skin. Even when Meggie nodded off she could still hear them, although Mo had closed the book long ago. Words that explained the world to her, its dark side and its light side, words that built a wall to keep out bad dreams. And not a single bad dream came over that wall for the rest of the night.

Cornelia Funke

Dream, Wall, Book

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What are letters?” “Kinda like mediaglyphics except they’re all black, and they’re tiny, they don’t move, they’re old and boring and really hard to read. But you can use ’em to make short words for long words.

Neal Stephenson

Moving, Long, Black

Neal Stephenson (2003). “The Diamond Age”, p.46, Spectra

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Cure" is one of the most precious words in the English language. It's a short word. A clean and simple word. But it isn't so easy a thing as it sounds. There are questions like: How will this affect us in ten years? In twenty? What will it do to our children? Our children's children?

Lauren DeStefano

Children, Simple, Years

Lauren DeStefano (2013). “Sever”, p.328, Simon and Schuster

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