William Strunk Jr Quotes

If you have received a letter inviting you to speak at the dedication of a new cat hospital, and you hate cats, your reply, declining the invitation, does not necessarily have to cover the full range of your emotions. You must make it clear that you will not attend, but you do not have to let fly at the cats. The writer of the letter asked a civil question; attack cats, then, only if you can do so with good humor, good taste, and in such a way that your answer will be courteous as well as responsive. Since you are out of sympathy with cats, you may quite properly give this as a reason for not appearing at the dedicatory ceremonies of a cat hospital. But bear in mind that your opinion of cats was not sought, only your services as a speaker. Try to keep things straight. ~ William Strunk Jr.

A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. ~ William Strunk Jr.

To air one's views gratuitously, is to imply that the demand for them is brisk. ~ William Strunk Jr.

Omit needless words. ~ William Strunk Jr.

1. Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's. ~ William Strunk Jr.

Do not, therefore, say "I feel nauseous," unless you are sure you have that effect on others. ~ William Strunk Jr.

The language is perpetually in flux: it is a living stream, shifting, changing, receiving new strength from a thousand tributaries, losing old forms in the backwaters of time. ~ William Strunk Jr.

Vigorous writing is concise. ~ Strunk Jr., William

Every writer, by the way he uses the language, reveals something of his spirit, his habits, his capacities, his bias ... Avoid the elaborate, the pretentious, the coy, and the cute. Do not be tempted by a twenty-dollar word when there is a ten-center handy, ready and able. ~ William Strunk Jr.

Negative words other than not are usually strong: ~ William Strunk Jr.

Rather, very, little, pretty
these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words. The constant use of the adjective little (except to indicate size) is particularly debilitating; we should all try to do a little better, we should all be very watchful of this rule, for it is a rather important one, and we are pretty sure to violate it now and then. ~ William Strunk Jr.

The writer who has a definite meaning to express will not take refuge in such vagueness. ~ William Strunk Jr.

This book is intended for use in English courses in which the practice of composition is combined with the study of literature. It aims to give in a brief space the principal requirements of plain English style. It aims to lighten the task of instructor and student by concentrating attention (in Chapters II and III) on a few essentials, the rules of usage and principles of composition most commonly violated. The numbers of the sections may be used as references in correcting manuscript. ~ William Strunk Jr.

Writers will often find themselves steering by stars that are disturbingly in motion. ~ William Strunk Jr.

Rewrite and revise. Do not be afraid to seize what you have and cut it to ribbons ... Good writing means good revising. ~ William Strunk Jr.

As the American poet, Marianne Moore, said: There is a great deal of poetry in unconscious fastidiousness. ~ William Strunk Jr.

conscience' sake ~ William Strunk Jr.

Prestigious. ~ William Strunk Jr.

The situation is perilous, but there is still one chance of escape. ~ William Strunk Jr.

Instead of announcing what you are about to tell is interesting, make it so. ~ William Strunk Jr.

In his New Yorker column of July 27, 1957, E. B. White praised the "little book" as a "forty-three-page summation of the case for cleanliness, accuracy, and brevity in the use of English. ~ William Strunk Jr.

A careful and honest writer does not need to worry about style. As you become proficient in the use of language, your style will emerge, because you yourself will emerge, and when this happens you will find it increasingly easy to breakthrough the barriers that separate you from other minds, other hearts - which is, of course, the purpose of writing, as well as its principal reward. ~ Strunk Jr., William

This rule is difficult to apply; it is frequently hard to decide whether a single word, such as however, or a brief phrase, is or is not parenthetic. If the interruption to the flow of the sentence is but slight, the writer may safely omit the commas. But whether the interruption be slight or considerable, he must never omit one comma and leave the other. Such punctuation as ~ William Strunk Jr.

If you use a colloquialism or a slang word or phrase, simply use it; do not draw attention to it by enclosing it in quotation marks. To do so is to put on airs, as though you were inviting the reader to join you in a select society of those who know better. ~ William Strunk Jr.

The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity. ~ William Strunk Jr.

If every word or device that achieved currency were immediately authenticated, simply on the grounds of popularity, the language would be as chaotic as a ball game with no foul lines ~ William Strunk Jr.

Never call a stomach a tummy without good reason. ~ William Strunk Jr.

Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's. Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. Thus write: Charles's friend, Burns's poems, the witch's malice. ... The pronomial possessives hers, its, theirs, yours, and ours have no apostrophe. Indefinite pronouns, however, use the apostrophe to show possession: one's rights, somebody else's umbrella. A common error is to write it's for its, or vice versa. The first is a contraction, meaning "it is". The second is a possessive. It's a wise dog that scratches its own fleas. ~ Strunk Jr., William

Your whole duty as a writer is to please and satisfy yourself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one. ~ William Strunk Jr.

Quotations introduced by that are regarded as in indirect discourse and not enclosed in quotation marks. ~ William Strunk Jr.

To acquire style, begin by affecting none. ~ William Strunk Jr.

2. As a rule, begin each paragraph with a topic sentence; end it in conformity with the beginning. ~ William Strunk Jr.

Nothing becomes funny by being labelled so. ~ William Strunk Jr.

Rich, ornate prose is hard to digest, generally unwholesome, and sometimes nauseating. ~ William Strunk Jr.

Opinions scattered indiscriminately about leave the mark of egotism. ~ William Strunk Jr.

Another segment of society that has constructed a language of its own is business. People in business say that toner cartridges are in short supply, that they have updated the next shipment of these cartridges, and that they will finalize their recommendations at the next meeting of the board. They are speaking a language familiar and dear to them. Its portentous nouns and verbs invest ordinary events with high adventure; executives walk among toner cartridges, caparisoned like knights. We should tolerate them
every person of spirit wants to ride a white horse. ~ William Strunk Jr.

In his Philosophy of Style, Herbert Spencer gives two sentences to illustrate how the vague and general can be turned into the vivid and particular: In proportion as the manners, customs, and amusements of a nation are cruel and barbarous, the regulations of its penal code will be severe. In proportion as men delight in battles, bullfights, and combats of gladiators, will they punish by hanging, burning, and the rack. ~ William Strunk Jr.

Prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract. ~ William Strunk Jr.

It is worse to be irresolute than to be wrong. ~ William Strunk Jr.

The surest way to arouse and hold the attention of the reader is by being specific, definitive, and concrete. The greatest writers - Homer, Dante, Shakespeare - are effective largely because they deal in particulars and report the details that matter. Their words call up pictures. ~ William Strunk Jr.

The heel of Achilles ~ William Strunk Jr.

Young writers often suppose that style is a garnish for the meat of prose, a sauce by which a dull dish is made palatable. Style has no such entity; it is nondetachable, unfilterable. ~ William Strunk Jr.

It is an old observation that the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric. When they do so, however, the reader will usually find in the sentence some compensating merit, attained at the cost of the violation. Unless he is certain of doing as well, he will probably do best to follow the rules. After he has learned, by their guidance, to write plain English adequate for everyday uses, let him look, for the secrets of style, to the study of the masters of literature. ~ William Strunk Jr.

Consciously or unconsciously, the reader is dissatisfied with being told only what is not; the reader wishes to be told what is ... If your every sentence admits a doubt, your writing will lack authority. ~ William Strunk Jr.

In exposition and in argument, the writer must likewise never lose his hold upon the concrete; and even when he is dealing with general principles, he must furnish particular instances of their application. ~ William Strunk Jr.

1. Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic. ~ William Strunk Jr.

If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud! ~ William Strunk Jr.

Nice. A shaggy, all-purpose word to be used sparingly in formal composition ~ William Strunk Jr.

I am as devoted to adventure now as then, and that's never going to stop. ~ William Goldman

We need to go to the niceties of approaching the U. N. and let them have a chance to take it over, but we should set some sort of date and begin to move out and leave it to whoever takes over. ~ William Odom

People are deceived and drawn on step by step, till war, death and destruction are upon them. ~ William T. Sherman

What is down will go up. At the same time, you have to be prepared for what is up to go down. ~ William Shatner

Paradoxically, in the long run, bonds are at least as risky as stocks. This is because stock returns are "mean reverting." That is, a series of bad years is likely to be followed by a series of good ones, repairing some of the damage. ~ William J. Bernstein

Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But masters, remember that I am an ass. Though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow, and which is more, an officer, and which is more, a householder, and which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina, and one that knows the law, go to ... and one that hath two gowns, and everything handsome about him. Bring him away. O that I had been writ down an ass! ~ William Shakespeare

In Europe itself it is not probable that war will ever absolutely cease until science discovers some destroying force so simple in its administration, so horrible in its effects, that all art, all gallantry, will be at an end, and battles will be massacres which the feelings of mankind will be unable to endure. ~ William Winwood Reade

[God] never will institute an ordinance or give a commandment to His people that is not calculated in its nature to promote that happiness which He has designed, and which will not end in the greatest amount of good and glory to those who become the recipients of His law and ordinances. ~ Joseph Smith Jr.

Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits Make rich the ribs, but backrout quite the wits. ~ William Shakespeare

We know nothing of the trials, sorrows and temptations of those around us, of pillows wet with sobs, of the life-tragedy that may be hidden behind a smile, of the secret cares, struggles, and worries that shorten life and leave their mark in hair prematurely whitened, and a character changed and almost recreated in a few days. Let us not dare to add to the burden of another the pain of our judgment. ~ William George Jordan

There are many reasons for increased spending on health care, including an aging population, technological change, perverse incentives, supply-induced demand, and fear of malpractice litigation. The broader point is that the basic underlying problem does not entail misbehavior or incompetence but rather stems from the nature of the provision of labor-intensive services. ~ William J. Baumol

You can lie at a banquet but you have to be honest in the kitchen. ~ William Stafford

Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada are the horns, the head, the neck, the shins, and the hoof of the ox, and the United States are the ribs, the sirloin, the kidneys, and the rest of the body. ~ William Cobbett

Four ducks on a pond, / A grass-bank beyond, / A blue sky of spring, / White clouds on the wing: / What a little thing / To remember for years - / To remember with tears!. ~ William Allingham

We could not salvage our clothes; we threw them away and changed into fresh uniforms. We even abandoned our boots. Maggots had worked their way into nooks and crannies of our shoes and occasionally fell onto the floor. ~ William F. Sine

When you attack your fellow "Americans" out of "HATE" no matter what organization or race you belong too, you have attacked America. It's called Homegrown Terrorism. If you loved America, you would not attack your fellow Americans out of barbarity. Learning "PEACE" is a condition of the heart. Peace is not possible without forgiveness. Un-forgiveness destroys, forgiveness heals. ~ Henry Johnson Jr

Most other countries didn't have doodley-squat. Many of them weren't even inhabitable anymore. They had too many people and not enough space. They had sold everything that was any good, and there wasn't anything to eat anymore, and still the people went on fucking all the time. Fucking was how babies were made. • • • A lot of the people on the wrecked planet were Communists. They had a theory that what was left of the planet should be shared more or less equally among all the people, who hadn't asked to come to a wrecked planet in the first place. Meanwhile, more babies were arriving all the time - kicking and screaming, yelling for milk. In some places people would actually try to eat mud or such on gravel while babies were being born just a few feet away. And so on. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Set we forward; let
A Roman and a British ensign wave
Friendly together. So through Lud's town march,
And in the temple of the great Jupiter
Our peace we'll ratify, seal it with feasts.
Set on there! Never was a war did cease,
Ere bloody hands were washed, with such a peace. ~ William Shakespeare

But the princes, putting the words of their wise men to naught, thought each to himself: If I but strike quickly enough, and in secret, I shall destroy those others in their sleep, and there will be none to fight back; the earth shall be mine.
Such was the folly of princes, and there followed the Flame Deluge. ~ Walter M. Miller Jr.

It had been his opinion that it might serve his country if the Chinese and his men saw that he was not afraid to die. For the comprehension of our age and the part treason has played in it, it is necessary to realize there are many English people who would have felt acutely embarrassed if they had to read aloud the story of this young man's death, or to listen to it, or comment on it in public. They would have admitted that he had shown extreme capacity for courage and self-sacrifice, and that these are admirable qualities, likely to help humanity in the struggle for survival; but at the same time he would not please them. They would have felt more at ease with many of the traitors in this book. They would have conceded that on general principles it is better not to lie, not to cheat, not to betray; but they also would feel that Water's heroism has something dowdy about it while treason has a certain style a sort of elegance, or as the vulgar would say, 'sophistication'. William Joyce would not have fallen within the scope of their preference, but the cause for that would be unconnected with his defense of the Nazi cause. The people who harbor such emotions find no difficulty in accepting French writers who collaborated with the Germans during the war. It would be Joyce's readiness to seal his fate with his life which they would have found crude and unappetizing. But Alan Nunn May, and Fuchs, Burgess, and Maclean would seem in better taste. And concerning taste there is no ar ~ Rebecca West

Any one who believes that any great enterprise of an industrial character can be started without labor must have little experience of life. ~ William Graham Sumner

Don't judge a man's conscience by looking at his face cause he may have a bad heart. ~ William Shakespeare

The Bible is more to be admired than the Louvre Museum, and the Gospel of John is perhaps its Mona Lisa. ~ James M. Hamilton Jr.

Forgiveness... a secret garden where Joy and miracles abound, and the garden is always open to everyone who makes the Loving choice to visit there. ~ Raymond D. Longoria Jr.

Experimental investigation, to borrow a phrase employed by Kepler respecting the testing of hypotheses, is "a very great thief of time." Sometimes it costs many days to determine a fact that can be stated in a line. ~ John William Draper

Without justification salvation is not of grace, but of works. ~ William Carey

If I should now utter piercing shrieks and act like a maniac on this platform, it would make many of you revise your ideas as to the probable worth of my philosophy. ~ William James

We very often fail to think as carefully about helping others as we could, mistakenly believing that applying data and rationality to a charitable endeavor robs the act of virtue. And that means we pass up opportunities to make a tremendous difference. ~ William MacAskill

Human intellect plays no role in redemption. ~ John F. MacArthur Jr.

I am convinced that even violent temperaments can be channeled through nonviolent discipline, if they can act constructively and express through an effective channel their very legitimate anger. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

The height of your accomplishments is determined by the depth of your convictions. ~ William F. Scolavino

In the same essay, Said (who is reviewing Peter Stansky and William Abrams, co-authors obsessed with the Blair/Orwell distinction) congratulates them on their forceful use of tautology:

'Orwell belonged to the category of writers who write.' And could afford to write, they might have added. In contrast they speak of George Garrett, whom Orwell met in Liverpool, a gifted writer, seaman, dockworker, Communist militant, 'the plain facts of [whose] situation - on the dole, married and with kids, the family crowded into two rooms - made it impossible for him to attempt any extended piece of writing.' Orwell's writing life then was from the start an affirmation of unexamined bourgeois values.

This is rather extraordinary. Orwell did indeed meet Garrett in Liverpool in 1936, and was highly impressed to find that he knew him already through his pseudonymous writing - under the name Matt Lowe - for John Middleton Murry's Adelphi. As he told his diary:

I urged him to write his autobiography, but as usual, living in about two rooms on the dole with a wife (who I gather objects to his writing) and a number of kids, he finds it impossible to settle to any long work and can only do short stories. Apart from the enormous unemployment in Liverpool, it is almost impossible for him to get work because he is blacklisted everywhere as a Communist.

Thus the evidence that supposedly shames Orwell by contrast is in fact supplied by - none other than Orwe ~ Christopher Hitchens

I cannot marry the facts of William Shakespeare to his verse: Other men had led lives in some sort of keeping with their thought, but this man is in wide contrast. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why would an eye want to form? ~ William Peter Blatty

The adjective that exists solely as decoration is a self-indulgence for the writer and a burden for the reader. ~ William Zinsser

The mind does not regulate its own condition. Mental depression, for example, is a state caused by the body ... William James described this relationship when he said we become sad because we shed tears: we do not shed tears because we are sad. ~ Jack Henry Abbott

The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time. ~ William Butler Yeats

Insofar as thought could be governed at all, it could only be commanded to follow what reason affirmed anyhow; command it otherwise and it would not obey. ~ Walter M. Miller Jr.

It is better to drink of deep grief than to taste shallow pleasures. ~ William Hazlitt

Of higher value than any one leader is the cause. ~ William Safire

As my awareness increases, my control over my own being increases. ~ William Schutz

Both Mitt and I have summer places up in New Hampshire on Lake Winnipesaukee. And a few summers ago I was taking my grandchildren and children to town in the boat for ice cream ... And I realized there was nobody in the boat to help me dock the boat, handle the ropes, do anything ... And I looked up and there was Mitt Romney. So he pulled me in, he tied up the boat for me. He rescued me just as he's going to rescue this great country. ~ J.W. "Bill" Marriott Jr.

William Goldman's Marathon Man was a novel that taught me about suspense. I was maybe 16 years old when I read it and I remember thinking, "You could put a gun to my head and I wouldn't put this book down." I loved that feeling - and want to give it others. ~ Harlan Coben

All I can say is that laughter is my music; I would deeply suspect an argument which hadn't laughter. ~ James Tiptree Jr.

The 'I think' which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the 'I breathe' which actually does accompany them. ~ William James