WIST Quotations Has Moved!May 9, 2025

A quotation from La Rochefoucauld

As great minds can express much in a few words, so small minds have the contrary talent of talking a great deal without saying anything at all.
 
[Comme c’est le caractère des grands esprits de faire entendre en peu de paroles beaucoup de choses, les petits esprits, au contraire, ont le don de beaucoup parler, et de ne rien dire.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶142 (1665-1678) [tr. FitzGibbon (1957)]

Sourcing, notes, other translations: wist.info/la-rochefoucauld-fra…

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WIST Quotations moves again!Feb 6, 2024

A quotation from Smith, Sydney:

«
In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style.
»

Full quote, sourcing, notes:
https://wist.info/smith-sydney/6904/

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Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, by His Daughter, Lady Holland, Vol. 1, ch. 11 (1855) - Smith, Sydney | WIST Quotations

In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style.

WIST