Louisa May Alcott Quotes

The single most important lesson of effective communication is this: Focus on clarity. Concentrate on precisions. Don’t worry about constructing beautiful sentences. Beauty comes from meaning, not language. Accuracy is the most effective style of all.

Simple and to the point is always the best way to get your point across.

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

Soft words and hard arguments.

Words must be weighed, not counted.

Make your point as clear as possible and thrust the steel well home.

We should speak as the populace, think as the learned.

I have found that there are moments when someone uses language that sears itself into the head [of the listener]. Those are the moments I look for.

Less is almost always better than more. Short words, short sentences, short speeches.

My basic rule is to speak slowly and simply so that my audience has an opportunity to follow and think about what I am saying.

No one can speak well, unless he thoroughly understands his subject.

Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a way—(1) that those to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure; (2) that they feel themselves interested

… a word carries far--very far--deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space.

We need to become more acutely conscious that words matter. None of us would deny that ideas and opinions matter, but we can sometimes be careless about how we express them. The words we choose to advance an idea, opinion, or point of view have a huge impact on how people react and respond to that view. When we use hyperbole, we increase the chances of being misunderstood and of promoting equally exaggerated counter-reactions, especially when people are reacting almost instantaneously.

Hyperbole engaged in consciously to achieve a desired effect can be, as we have noted, a useful rhetorical tool. Indeed, its use in this manner is sometimes called "exaggeration in the service of truth." However, there's much to be said for restraint of tongue and pen, and restraint refers not only to what we say but also to how we say it. It is possible, believe it or not, to be emphatic without indulging in overstatement; it is possible to be forceful without exaggerating.

The greatest menace in the world is not poison gas. There are gas masks against that. The menace is poisoned words, poisoned ideas. The greatest menace in the world is not poison gas. There are gas masks against that. The menace is poisoned words, poisoned ideas.

Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas.

I still remember the first acronym I learned, BLUF: Bottom Line Up Front. I still try to communicate that way. No reason to dance around getting to the point.

The difficulty is not to write, but to write what you mean.

I think that if you use the so-called "strong words" you'll get your point across faster and you can save a lot of beating around the bush. Why are people afraid of words? Sometimes the dumbest thing that gets said makes the point for you.

Writing and reading and speaking with specificity and skill has never seen more important to me than it does at this moment. It's what's between us and chaos.

One should aim not at being possible to understand, but at being impossible to misunderstand.

Whatever we well understand we express clearly, and words flow with ease.

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

Words... They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good any more... I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you're dead.