Oliver Ellsworth Quotes

Faults in English prose derive not so much from lack of knowledge, intelligence or art as from lack of thought, patience or goodwill.

The first requisite of style, not only in rhetoric, but in all compositions, is perspicuity.

It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.

Don't write so that you can be understood, write so that you can't be misunderstood.

We find few disputes, that are not founded on some ambiguity in the expression [thereof].

We should not write so that it is possible for [the reader] to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us.

The habit of writing clearly soon comes to the writer who is a severe critic to himself.

Don't express your ideas too clearly. Most people think little of what they understand, and venerate what they do not.

Multitudes of words are neither an argument of clear ideas in the writer, nor a proper means of conveying clear notions to the reader.

The speaker must choose a comprehensible expression so that speaker and hearer can understand one another.

Let grammar, punctuation, and spelling into your life! Even the most energetic and wonderful mess has to be turned into sentences.

Whatever is clearly expressed is well wrote.

He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.

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.

I wish my prose to be transparent—I don't want the reader to stumble over me; I want him to look through what I'm saying to what I'm describing. I don't want him ever to say, Oh, goodness, how nicely written this is. That would be a failure.

Of all the needs a book has the chief need is that it be readable.

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

The void created by the failure to communicate is soon filled with poison, drivel and misrepresentation.

The surest way to get what you need is to communicate.

... when we are misunderstood it is always our own fault. What the reader wants most of all is to be able to grasp what we think; but you loftily refuse to comply.

I think, in general, it's clear that most bad things come from misunderstanding, and communication is generally the way to resolve misunderstandings - and the Web's a form of communications - so it generally should be good.

Then you should say what you mean," the March Hare went on. "I do," Alice hastily replied; "at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know." "Not the same thing a bit!" said the Hatter. "You might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!

Words, like glasses, obscure everything they do not make clear. Before using a fine word, make a place for it.

If I am ever obscure in my expressions, do not fancy that therefore I am deep. If I were really deep, all the world would understand, though they might not appreciate. The perfectly popular style is the perfectly scientific one. To me an obscurity is a reason for suspecting a fallacy.

If you say three things, you don't say anything.