Joseph Joubert Quotes

Writing is learning to say nothing, more cleverly each day.

I love the right words. I think economy and precision of language are important.

Whatever one wishes to say, there is one noun only by which to express it, one verb only to give it life, one adjective only which will describe it. One must search until one has discovered them, this noun, this verb, this adjective, and never rest content with approximations, never resort to trickery, however happy, or to vulgarism, in order to dodge the difficulty.

I'm clearer now in what I want to say, and I know better how to say just that.

Where questions of style and exposition are concerned I try to follow a simple maxim: if you can't say it clearly you don't understand it yourself.

The right word fitly spoken is a precious rarity.

They place great stress on the clarity of our language for expressing nuances and showing subtleties.

I was born into a profession in which my love of words, chosen with care for their meaning and nuance, was extremely important, not only to me, but also to the people with whom I worked with.

One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment.

Clarity is the most important thing to me - in thinking - and so I try in the books to be as clear as possible.

Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

Though old the thought and oft exprest, Tis his at last who says it best.

Whatever you want to say, there is only one word to express it, only one verb to give it movement, only one adjective to qualify it.

Everything that can be said, can be said clearly.

I see but one rule: to be clear. If I am not clear, all my world crumbles to nothing.

My tongue is prone to lose the way,Not so my pen, for in a letterWe have not better things to say,But surely put them better.

Words are often seen hunting for an idea, but ideas are never seen hunting for words.

It's important to be precise about words, because of the thought value of them-they frame and shape so much of the way we understand things.

Words are how people think. When you misuse words, you diminish your ability to think clearly and truthfully.

I'm tired of wasting letters when punctuation will do, period.

It's technically extremely difficult to get down what you really mean, not what you think you mean, or what you think sounds good, but what's really there, what you really have to express, in words that somehow convey that meaning in an approximate way.

Words in a person's word stock are like paints on a palette. It helps to have just the right shade when you need it.

Mark Twain said, 'The right word is to the nearly right word as lightning is to the lightning bug.' Fill your book with lightning.

If you need three adjectives to describe something, then you've probably chosen the wrong something.