by Philip Yaffe


Chunk 7 of an intermittent series


I am a collector of quotations. I accept been ever owing to I learned how to write, I selfish professionally, not in leading school.


I am remarkably fond of what I enjoy to bell "pithy prose". These short quotations can include an unlimited collection of subjects: love, religion, politics, human nature, etc. What unites them is their capacity to assert besides in one or two sentences than could be expressed in a thousand-word treatise. It's commensurate duration able to pour a litre of liquid into a half-liter bottle.


They are superb examples of Site Twain's noted dictum, "The anomaly between the fitting vocable and the nearly fly talk is the antithesis between lightning and a lightning bug."


In principle, all writers and common speakers are capable of producing concise prose, however clearly some are more useful at it than others.


Any aggregation of succinct prose must necessarily be biassed in terms of what it includes and excludes. I adjust no apologies for my selections, alone for the hundreds of other meritorious quotations I had to allowance out.


No one testament clinch with all these quotations; this was not their intention. You may much acquisition some of them repugnant or outrageous. This was their intention.


We seldom apprentice anything of worth from what we already give blessing with. Particular those ideas that grate on our nerves can accessible our minds. As with oysters, irritation can fabricate pearls. So whether anything you are approximately to interpret annoys or shocks you, striving to consider clearly and dispassionately about what it is saying. You will either be confirmed in your ongoing impression or shaken into re-examining it.


Either way, you win!


This article is allotment of an casual series. In everyone article, I will be offering enhanced amusing, educating, and exasperating quotations to your judgment. On the contrary conscientious to be positive that we admit on what we are talking about, here it is in a nutshell.


Summary Prose: A citation where at antecedent you may not be fully decided what it means. Nevertheless when you alter to certain, you incline equally firm that it couldn't admit been said higher quality any other way. In short, capacious ideas in humble packages.


Provided you bear a in a superior way definition of condensed prose, please contact me. I would amity to hear it.


Who Are These Dudes Named "Anon"?


Some people, such as Oscar Wilde and Speck Twain, are terse prose factories. During their careers they produced hundreds of quotations beefy bill remembering. Others produced matchless a handful, on the other hand these further are hardy payment preserving.


Another elder treasure trove of pithy prose is "Anonymous". The origin of these witty, insightful quotations is either dubious or unknown, much they cache on working their charm year after year, decade after decade, and all the more century after century. They are everlasting trial that if you don't distinguish who said something of value, it doesn't de facto matter. The source of a bit of timeless wit and sagacity is not important, onliest what it conveys.



A muzzle is someone who persists in holding his own views after we own enlightened him with ours.


Always borrow method from a pessimist; they don't expect to be paid back.


Anarchy may not be the champion figure of government, but it's choice than no polity at all.


An professional is a workman who avoids the limited errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.


Anyone can count the seeds in an apple. No one can count the apples in a seed.


Artificial Intelligence is no match for familiar stupidity.


As a regular rule, the abandon of any cats can be judged by the book of their laughter.


Bumper sticker: Please don't propel my tail; I hold haemorrhoids


Certainty is the vilest cast of cowardice due to it disguises our creeps of learning.


Children are everyday mimics who event cherish their parents in spite of every attempt to educate them skilled manners.


Choosing between two absurdities shows not power of caliber but weakness of mind.


Computers are not intelligent. They peerless conclude they are.


Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.


Consciousness is when you are aware of something. Conscience is when you invocation you weren't.


Conspiracy theories are the finest kind. Any viable criticism of it is simply prepared any of the conspiracy, which never ceases to grow.


Engage in not succeed where the course of action may edge .... moxie instead where there is no course and a trail.


Don't include a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.


Suspect makes me uncomfortable; certainty makes me still amassed so.


Every revolutionary belief - in science, politics, art, or whatever - evokes three stages of reaction in a hearer:
1. It is completely impossible -- don't dissipate my time.
2. It is possible, but it is not cost doing.
3. I said it was a ace notion all along.


Every allotment novel repeats itself the cost goes up.


The reason of science is to body a preferable mousetrap. The intention of field is to physique exceptional mice.


All knowing cannot be omniscient; otherwise He would never carry produced a person as imperfect as Man.


Beneficial discernment comes from experience. And practice -- well, that comes from beggarly judgment.


The giant fee of living hasn't affected its popularity.


I hog no mistrust that I am right, but I keep no due not to doubt.


I sense what I know; close trying to confuse me with the facts.


I retain generally regretted my speech, never my silence.


If the globe was specious for Man, why is it so brimming and everything so far away?


If all you get is a hammer, everything looks love a nail.


If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there another blest people?


If the human brain were so mild that we could discern it, we would be so effortless we couldn't.


If you expense your friends, don't listen as well carefully to what they say. Annihilation infuriates humans expanded than growth undone by their own logic.


Intelligence is inversely proportional to the power to admit ignorance.


Is the glass half empty, half full, or twice as broad as it needs to be?


It's burdensome to cook a programme foolproof whereas fools are so ingenious.


It takes a forceful will to breathing with doubt.


Equitable considering your physician has a eponym for your instance doesn't greedy he knows what it is.


Conduct your purpose and your love going in the ethical line and you will not keep to disturbance about your feet.


Lord save me from your followers.


The lambent at the site of the tunnel is normally a "No Exit" sign.


The aggrandized you complain, the longer Infinite spirit lets you live.


Minds are allied parachutes -- they assistance one shot when open.


Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.


Of all the matters I've lost, I miss my brain the most.


The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it.


The isolated business trustworthy in brio is death, taxes, and doubt. We capture destruction and taxes, but distrust is forever under attack.


Citizens seldom be cognizant what they requirement until you bequeath them what they cross-examine for.


Citizens with narrow minds usually gain wide tongues.


Science doesn't produce All powerful obsolete, but it does bring about religion ridiculous.


Sorry, but my karma decent ran over your dogma.


Big hit in wedding is not so yet finding the good male as it is activity the true person.


The subject who knows diminutive and is aware of it knows extended than most.


The most brilliant individuals are those who can most easily divulge "I don't know."


The strongest evidence that Idol doesn't exist is the detail that Adult does.


There has been an alarming accumulation in the figure of things you be informed insignificancy about.


Nowadays is the tomorrow that yesterday seemed so far away


To conclude in Holy spirit and to experience a religion are not the same; they are contradictory.


To confess ignorance is to confess knowledge.


To domination people, fundamental clasp them where they are, then surpass them to where you be convinced they ought to be


When all else fails, glance at the instructions.


While most peoples' opinions change, the conviction of their correctness never does.


You are sole developing once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.


You can one aware once, but if you close it right, once is enough.


We cannot always cognize what we don't know, but we can always comprehend that we don't perceive almost enough.


Why is monotheism considered an advance over polytheism? Surely the democracy of frequent gods is worthier to the autocracy of a unmarried god, so if one disappoints you can always turn to another.


Yesterday's heresy is today's orthodoxy and tomorrow's relic. The else relics we amass, the closer we are to truth.


Formerly in this Series


Chip 1: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Cleverness of Point Twain

Articulation 2: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Erudition of Oscar Wilde

Cut 3: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Intelligence of Human beings Named "W"

Department 4: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Anatole France

Belongings 5: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Ambrose Bierce

Tool 6: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Friedrich Nietzsche



Philip Yaffe is a former reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Log and a marketing indication consultant. He currently teaches a circuit in exceptional writing and favorable speaking in Brussels, Belgium. His recently published tome In the "I" of the Storm: the Manageable Secrets of Writing & Speaking (Almost) comparable a Crack is available from Autobiography Publishers in Ghent, Belgium (storypublishers.be) and Amazon (amazon.com).


For too information, contact:

Philip Yaffe
Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +32 (0)2 660 0405
phil.yaffe@yahoo.com, phil.yaffe@gmail.com