"Conciseness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... likewise is conciseness a well-known merit. Living in an age of books and libraries, he drew more from the written word than did Thucydides; and his method of working, therefore, resembled more our own. These are common expressions of his: ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... merely amusing. No man is less crazy, few men are so conscious of what they are doing, and few modern composers boast such a faculty of attention. Concentration is the key-note of his work; concentration—or condensation formal, concentration of thematic material—to the vanishing-point; and conciseness in treatment, although every ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... hypocrite!" interrupts Miss Maliphant, with truly beautiful conciseness. She has never learned to mince matters. "And, when all is told, perhaps nothing better than a fool! You are well out of it, ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... quotes W. Hooper's Rational Recreations (1794) as an earlier authority for the use of "concision" in the sense of conciseness.] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... striking picture to the mind of every reader. It was that want which I determined to supply, and with some degree of earnestness the self-imposed task was undertaken. My plan was faintly to imitate the simple narrative style, the conciseness, the picturesqueness, the eloquence, the poetry, and the philosophic spirit of a history, the most remarkable of any extant—that of the world. As Moses graphically and philosophically has sketched the peopling of the earth; ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... Lambert at the Crossing; one letter would do for both; the phrases were all ready to his pencil. Briefly explaining the situation to Tole, he sat down to his note-book. Two pages held it all; Stonor would have been surprised had he been told that it was a model of conciseness. ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... credit was staked upon the completeness of their system, it was incredible what strange and ridiculous contingencies and combinations of circumstance they had suggested as modifying the application of their general rules. The books of law, voluminous as they are in most civilized countries, were conciseness itself compared with this new code of morals. It was thought by many, that the labors of the commissioners would not come to an end till long after the race for whose benefit it was designed had ceased to exist. Afraid, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... read his report. The slow, lifeless, monotonous voice, the Lyonnais accent, soft and drawling, with which the advocate kept time by a movement of the head and shoulders almost like an animal, presented a striking contrast to the savage conciseness of the conclusions. First, a rapid sketch of the electoral irregularities. Never had universal suffrage been treated with such primitive, uncivilized disrespect. At Sarlazaccio, where Jansoulet's opponent seemed likely to carry the day, the ballot-box was ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... 167. Again Moses' customary conciseness is in evidence, which, however, is more effective than an excess of words. In the first place, he personifies a lifeless object when he attributes to blood a voice filling with its cries heaven and the earth. How ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... pen tends to give clearness and conciseness to the speaker's style. It makes him careful and accurate. It aids, too, in fixing the ideas of his speech in his mind, so that at the moment of addressing an audience they will respond most readily ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... his visitor renewed expressions of flattery, he added with tearful sighs, imparting to his words a telegraphic conciseness, "Ah, Spain! Beautiful land, excellent country, nation of gentlemen!... My forefathers came from there, from a place called ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Callieres, Jan., 1689; of the Abstract of Letters from Canada, in N.Y. Col. Docs., IX. 393; and of the writer of Relation des Evenements de la Guerre, 8 Oct., 1688. Belmont notices the affair with his usual conciseness. La Hontan's account is sustained by the others in most, though not in all of its essential points. He calls the Huron chief Adario, ou le Rat. He is elsewhere mentioned as Kondiarouk, Kondiaront, Souoias, and Souaiti. La Hontan says that the scene of the treachery was one of ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... not only in themselves, but relatively, or as they respect each other; both to treat them as so many wholes, and as so many parts of some greater whole." The compiler lacked the grasp necessary to realise this laudable purpose. The book has, however, the merit of conciseness, and is a singular monument of literary industry, for it was entirely compiled by Chambers himself. It had a great success, and though its price was high (four guineas), it ran through five editions in eighteen years. On the whole, however, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... of announcement is a model of conciseness, and answers the oft-repeated question, "Where shall we go to find the married ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... the psalms is then in many ways defective. It is frequently incorrect and barbarous in style, obscure in places, and even fails at times to give the exact sense of the original. Although our Vulgate is not perfect, it possesses admirable strength and conciseness, joined to an agreeable savour which gives it the greatest value and causes the words of the sacred singers, under this form of the Latin spoken by the people, to strike the mind and become engraved upon ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... latter place to write up his correspondence and make short visits to the various market towns of the department. The night before he left Blois for Tours he indited a letter to Mademoiselle Jenny Courand. As the conciseness and charm of this epistle cannot be equalled by any narration of ours, and as, moreover, it proves the legitimacy of the tie which united these two individuals, ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... and with the conciseness of the legal mind, to tell of A. Rodgers Warren, his business and his estate. He had been a broker with a seat ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... p. 384, pays a fair tribute to him. Much general information respecting him may be seen in Mr. Loudon's chapter "Of the rise, progress, and present state of gardening in the British Isles." The candour and rich conciseness of this review, embraces the whole magic of the art, as respects ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... the student cannot but notice the contrast between the easy diction of modern philosophical writers and the rugged conciseness of the mediaeval Schoolman. On the other hand, disappointment awaits those who quit the pages of Cicero for the less elegant Latinity of the Middle Ages. What can be said in favor of scholastic "style" is that it expresses clearly and tersely ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... eighteenth century and acquiesced in the conventional judgments upon them. It is seldom in his brief and casual comments that Scott is particularly interesting as a critic, except when he is speaking of living writers, for he lacked the gift of conciseness. When he has a large canvas he is at his best, and this he has in the principal works described in this chapter:—The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, the Works of Dryden, the Works of Swift, and the ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... but was an eye witness, as he somewhere telleth you, unto all and every one of the bold and hazardous attempts which he relateth. And these he delivereth with such candour of stile, such ingenuity of mind, such plainness of words, such conciseness of periods, so much divested of Rhetorical Hyperboles, or the least flourishes of Eloquence, so hugely void of Passion or national Reflections, as that he strongly perswadeth all-along to the credit of what he saith; yea, raiseth the mind of the Reader to believe these things far greater ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... to make her way as apprentice in a shop. Two years later he despatched his son, Jerome-Denis, to the same career. When his friends the carriers and those who frequented the inn, asked him what he meant to do with his children, Pere Rogron explained his system with a conciseness which, in view of that of most fathers, had the merit ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Stainer, Mus. Doc. New edition of a standard text-book which presents the principles of harmony with conciseness and lucidity. ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... lightness of touch with depth of feeling. The pequeno poema is merely an enlarged dolora. Campoamor disliked Byron and he disliked still more the sonorous emptiness that is characteristic of too much Spanish poetry.[4] In philosophy he revered Thomas a Kempis; in form he aimed at conciseness and directness rather than at artistic perfection. His poetry lacks enthusiasm and coloring, but it ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... which is dedicated to Prince Lucien Bonaparte, the "London Times" devoted a full column. I never heard any one who had used it speak of it except with admiration. The modest Friend may be surprised to find himself at full length in my pages, but those who know the little miracle of typography, its conciseness, completeness, arrangement, will not wonder that I was gratified to see the author, who sent it to me, and who has written me most interesting letters on the local antiquities of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... translation of David's Psalms, which is still considered as a classical work; in his other poems, Pindar, Anacreon, and Horace, were alternately his models, without diminishing the original value of his pieces.[28] Adam Mickiewicz compares him, in respect to the brevity, conciseness, and terseness of his expression, with the last named Roman poet; in reference to his treatment of the classic elements, to Goethe. His brother Andrew translated Virgil's AEneid; his nephew Peter, with more talent and success, the great ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... other philosophic systems, on the Vedic sacrifices, on domestic ceremonies, on sacred law, on grammar, and on metres. The two Mima/m/sa-sutras occupy, however, an altogether exceptional position in point of style. All Sutras aim at conciseness; that is clearly the reason to which this whole species of literary composition owes its existence. This their aim they reach by the rigid exclusion of all words which can possibly be spared, by the careful avoidance of ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... two systems, the last seems to me preferable. A judicious mean may be adopted between the eccentric conciseness of Napoleon and the minute verbosity which laid down for experienced generals like Barclay, Kleist, and Wittgenstein precise directions for breaking into companies and reforming again in line of battle,—a piece of nonsense all the more ridiculous because the ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... attributed to the face, and the adultery to the breasts, is well given by Manger: "We need not have any difficulty about seeing adultery attributed to the very face and breasts. There is a certain expressiveness in this conciseness which demonstrates, as it were before our eyes, that, in her whole deportment, the wife was given over to sensuality, and that her whole aim was only to excite to it, and to practise it. For the face is, with women, the sign of dissolute lasciviousness—as Horace ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... tact that rarely was at fault. In oratory he did not equal Sheridan in wit and brilliance, Burke in richness of thought and majesty of diction, or Fox in massive strength and debating facility; but, while falling little short of Fox in debate, he excelled him in elegance and conciseness, Burke in point and common sense, Sheridan in dignity and argumentative power, and all of them in the felicitous wedding of elevated thought or vigorous argument to noble diction. By the side of ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... is difficult to imagine a reader of ordinary intelligence who would not be entertained by the book.... Conciseness, exactness, urbanity of tone, and interestingness are the four qualities which chiefly impress the reader of these ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... surely the double merit of conciseness and melody; well, for all that, they were disgustingly offensive to one true friend of the captain, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... his quivering face. "My sister has given birth to a son, and lies at the point of death," she said with her unsparing conciseness, but ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... services. Whatever the reason for this custom may have been is immaterial and unimportant; but what is of importance is that, by this excellent practice, a whole body of moral dicta—each one summing up with remarkable conciseness a life's experience and philosophy, each one breathing the spirit of piety, saintliness, justice, and love for humanity—has sunk deeply into the innermost heart and consciousness of the Jewish people, exerting such an influence that the principles ...
— Pirke Avot - Sayings of the Jewish Fathers • Traditional Text
... Wessex, in the first struggle, "Cerdic and Cynric offslew a British king whose name was Natanleod, and 5,000 men with him." And so the dismal annals of rapine and slaughter run on from year to year, with simple, unquestioning conciseness, showing us, at least, the manner in which the later English believed their forefathers had acquired the land. Moreover, these frightful details accord well enough with the vague generalities of Gildas, from which, however, they may very possibly have been ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... of confidence and, from a literary point of view, their lapidary style, model of condensation, impossible to render in English and conditioned by the hard fact that every word costs two sous. Under this painful material stress, indeed, the messages are sometimes crushed into a conciseness which the females concerned must have some difficulty in unperplexing: what on earth does the parsimonious Flower mean by his Delphic ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... consent, the young man proceeded to Cologne for his course of theology and civil and canon law. No sooner did he appear in the lecture rooms than he attracted universal attention. It was not merely the clearness and conciseness of his reasoning, nor altogether the humility of his bearing, but perhaps the mingled charm of each that roused the interest of professors and students alike. That interest led them to watch him closely, and ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... is a tolerably near approach to the original, although a distinction might be made between the force of power resides in, and power possessed by. The second line falls short of the conciseness of the original by transposing the object of impregnates into the third. This, however, though a blemish, might also be passed over. But what shall we say to the expansion of aura into a full line, and that line so Elizabethan and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... been awarded the prize with an impressive, "Keep on that way, my boy"; and he kept on. I still see poems in the papers whose clearness, conciseness and sublimity betray his master hand. I have heard that he died of smallpox—he had not been vaccinated; it will be remembered—but I consider it my duty to protect him from any such slander. A genius does not die; otherwise ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... of conciseness in a hurried situation I have made Cleopatra recommend rum. This, I am afraid, is an anachronism: the only real one in the play. To balance it, I give a couple of the remedies she actually believed in. They are quoted by Galen from Cleopatra's book ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... under the second book of these commentaries: and as to his duties, they are principally of ecclesiastical cognizance; those only excepted which are laid upon him by statute. And those are indeed so numerous that it is impracticable to recite them here with any tolerable conciseness or accuracy. Some of them we may remark, as they arise in the progress of our enquiries, but for the rest I must refer myself to such authors as have compiled treatises expressly upon this subject[l]. I shall only just mention the article ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... No man handles his adjectives with greater judgment and nicer discrimination. There is hardly a page of his work where we do not come across words and expressions which strike us with a pleasant sense of novelty, and yet express the meaning with admirable conciseness. "His eyes came coasting round to me." It is dangerous to begin quoting, as the examples are interminable, and each suggests another. Now and then he misses his mark, but it is very seldom. As an example, an "eye-shot" does not commend itself as a substitute for "a ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... stable and capable of being learned and depended upon than that the Divine will should be incalculable—ondoyant et divers—a matter of moods on His side and of importunity on ours. Tennyson's familiar lines represent the typically modern outlook with the utmost accuracy and conciseness:— ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... not be so weakly indifferent as to prefer the easy way—choose the best way, whatever it cost you in time and effort. And of this be assured: only the practised speaker can hope to gain both conciseness of argument and conviction in manner, polish of language and power in delivery, finish of ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... concentration of his naturalistic work of the 1880's has given way to a freer form of composition, in which the atmosphere has come to mean more than the dialogue, the musical and dreamlike qualities more than conciseness. The Road to Damascus abounds with details from real life, reproduced in sharply naturalistic manner, but these are not, as things were in his earlier works viewed by the author a priori as reality but become wrapped in dreamlike mystery. Just as with Lady Julia and The Father Strindberg ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... harmonies, in spite of the diversity of their effect, obtained from very scanty material, are distinguished by a sort of simplicity, and even by a solidity and conciseness, which one only meets with in Beethoven.... One may find here and there harmonies that are commonplace and trivial, and others that are incorrect—at least according to the old rules. In some places his ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... language in the making while Chinese is cited by authoritative European scholars as being a language which with the simplest possible means at its disposal can express the most technical or philosophical ideas with absolute freedom from ambiguity and with admirable conciseness ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... D'Artagnan, from being himself on all great occasions extremely concise, did not draw from the general's conciseness a favorable augury of the result of his mission. Now, as D'Artagnan had plenty of time for reflection, he battered his brains during this time in endeavoring to find out how Athos had seen King Charles, how he had conspired ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of foreign travel the object has been to cover a broad field without making a cumbersome volume, to do which, conciseness has necessarily been observed. In previous books the author has described much more in detail some of the countries here briefly spoken of. The volumes referred to are "Due-West; or, Round the World in Ten Months," and "Due-South; or, Cuba Past and Present," which were published by Houghton, ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... although opening glimpses of Greek-like splendour in the occasional inspirations of Lucretius; proved indeed, to the uttermost, by Cicero, and by him found wanting; yet majestic in its bareness, impressive in its conciseness; the true language of history, instinct with the spirit of nations and not with the passions of individuals; breathing the maxims of the world, and not the tenets of the schools; one and uniform in its ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... "Conciseness itself," Mangan admitted, "and I compliment you most heartily upon your scheme. If you can get the right people into it, it should prove a ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Lieutenant Golightly, The Story of Muhammed Din, The Germ Destroyer, and The Madness of Private Ortheris, for example, without admiration for the versatility which can cover so wide a range, and impress, amuse, or touch with the same ease and epigrammatic conciseness. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... insert the proverb of "Full of fun and fooster, like Mooney's goose," with the hope that your acute and ingenious correspondent D.V.S. may be able to throw some light upon "Mooney." Let me add that D.V.S. has perhaps somewhat misconceived my brief comment on Ludlam, which my regard for conciseness has left some deal obscure; and it does not appear worth while to go over the ground again. I repeatedly heard "Dick's hat-band" quoted by Lancashire friends exactly as given by Southey. Does not the variation "cobbler's dog" tend to prove the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 40, Saturday, August 3, 1850 - A Medium Of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, • Various
... conciseness; and spurred by this discovery to fresh enthusiasm for our exploit, we promptly ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... on. And the money continued to roll in—a flood of it. Then, one afternoon, Eva, in town on shopping bent, entered a small, exclusive, and expensive shop on Michigan Avenue. Eva's weakness was hats. She was seeking a hat now. She described what she sought with a languid conciseness, and stood looking about her after the saleswoman had vanished in quest of it. The room was becomingly rose-illumined and somewhat dim, so that some minutes had passed before she realized that a man seated on a raspberry brocade settee not five feet away—a man ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... carefully weighed; and it would be hard to omit or change anything without injuring the meaning which Bacon intended to convey." Severe as it is, it is instinct with enthusiasm, sometimes with passion. The Latin in which it is written answers to it; it has the conciseness, the breadth, the lordliness of a ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... Enquiries, was not only proper for the Moral Reason which the Poet assigns, but because it would have been highly absurd to have given the Sanction of an Archangel to any particular System of Philosophy. The chief Points in the Ptolemaick and Copernican Hypothesis are described with great Conciseness and Perspicuity, and at the same time dressed in very ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... he should not use three. If a single event will suffice for his effect, he should confine himself to that. If his story can pass in one place at one time, he must not disperse it over several times and places. But in striving always for the greatest possible conciseness, he must not neglect the equally important need of producing his effect "with the utmost emphasis." If he can gain markedly in emphasis by violating the strictest possible economy, he should do so; for, as Poe stated, undue brevity is exceptionable, as well as undue ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... of 1842 is written; the style of the later Essay (1844) is more finished. It has, however, the air of an uncorrected MS. rather than of a book which has gone through the ordeal of proof sheets. It has not all the force and conciseness of the Origin, but it has a certain freshness which gives it a character of its own. It must be remembered that the Origin was an abstract or condensation of a much bigger book, whereas the Essay of 1844 was an expansion of the sketch of 1842. It is not therefore surprising that ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... not so familiar with business affairs, must be approached from a different angle. Little points must be explained and guarantees must be strongly emphasized. The formal letter which appeals to a man by going straight to the point would, by its very conciseness, offend the ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... allowed to be the best Lawyer among the Orators, and Scaevola to be the most eloquent Civilian of the age: for the latter could not only discover with the nicest precision what was agreeable to law and equity; but had likewise a conciseness and propriety of expression, which was admirably adapted to his purpose. In short, he had such a wonderful vein of oratory in commenting, explaining, and discussing, that I never beheld his equal; though in amplifying, embellishing, and refuting, he was rather to ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... noted that her mind seemed to attain an unusual clearness, her speech a new conciseness; that she was displaying a force of will he ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... party. But now the fortunes of war were beginning to turn in our favor. Perry had won his brilliant little naval victory over the English fleet on Lake Erie, and had written to the Secretary of the Navy with Caesar-like conciseness: "We have met the enemy, and they are ours!" By land, too, the British had been met and beaten back at every point, till now they were without a foothold on ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... pages bear witness in this way to the troubles amid which they were written. To read them is difficult. On the other hand, the monk of Beargarden's style shows no trace of emotion. The tone of the "Gesta Penguinorum" never departs from simplicity. The narration is rapid and of a conciseness that sometimes approaches dryness. The reflections are rare and, ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... Haydn we have 125 symphonies, from Mozart about 40, from Beethoven 9. Of Haydn's symphonies possibly a half dozen have permanent vitality; of Mozart's four; of Beethoven's all, with the possible exception of the experimental first. Condensation of subject matter, conciseness of style, a ceaseless exaltation of quality above quantity are the prominent features in Beethoven's work. All adipose tissue is relentlessly excised, and the finished creation resembles a human being in perfect physical condition—the ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... confine an English version to the same number of words as the Latin. When they added to the number, they feared that they were unfaithful to the original. The need for brevity, for avoiding superfluous words, is especially emphasized in connection with the Bible. Conciseness, necessary for accuracy, is also an admirable quality in itself. Aelfric's approval of this characteristic has already been noted. The metrical preface to Rolle's Psalter reads: "This holy man in expounding, ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... these two volumes are full of interest for those who care for psychological studies expressed in verse. What the vehicle of verse does for them is to secure conciseness and suggestiveness in the rendering of remote, daring, and unexpected turns of thought and feeling, and especially of conscience. Yet the poems themselves cannot be called concise. Their subjects are not large enough, nor indeed agreeable ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... obscurity of ideas from the unusual nature of the language. Hence, while the things themselves are not well known, and their names not in common use, if besides this the principles are described in a very diffuse fashion without any attempt at conciseness and explanation in a few pellucid sentences, such fullness and amplitude of treatment will be only a hindrance, and will give the reader nothing but indefinite notions. Therefore, when I mention obscure terms, and the symmetrical proportions of members of buildings, I ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... novels which have come out of England will compare with this story in two points—absolute conciseness of form and analysis of motive.... Here is a theme of vital truthfulness and Mr. Louis Zangwill has dealt with it with the hand of a ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... would be an intensified ass who should attempt to reach the diction of the 'Paradise Lost', or aspire to the tremendous style of Shakespeare. You must not confound things, though. A Lyric diction is one thing—a Dramatic diction is another, requiring the utmost force and conciseness of expression,—and Epic diction is still another; I conceive it to be something between the Lyric and Dramatic, with all the luxuriance of the former, and all the power ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... dealing with the body of an opponent. Thereupon he plies me with authorities, and flourishes before me the speeches of Lysias among the Greeks, and those of the Gracchi and Cato from among Roman orators. The majority of these are certainly characterised by conciseness and brevity, but I quote against Lysias the examples of Demosthenes, Aeschines, Hyperides, and a multitude of others, while against the Gracchi and Cato I set Pollio, Caesar, Caelius, and, above all, Marcus Tullius, whose longest speech ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... the period; the second, that of attempting to illustrate it by stories such as those of Clive and Hastings which had been told by writers with whom competition was out of the question. Brevity, therefore, is studied; and what may seem baldness will be found to be a conciseness, on which much ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... for this book, on account of the natural and progressive order of the lessons,—of the conciseness and truthfulnes of the descriptive matter,—of the number, correctness, and uniform excellence of the Maps,—from the fact that the book is faithfully revised as often as political changes in our own or other ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... "Mona Lisa's Picture," "The Duke's Commission" and "Woman's Art" are perhaps the best, and the last poem especially is very spirited and terse. Mrs. Preston's style has the rare merit in these days of uniting conciseness and directness to grace and beauty of expression. Her greatest failing is a lack of the sense of climax. There are several of these poems, like the two on the Venerable Bede and that called "Bacharach Wine," that rather disappoint one by the insignificance of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... a relic of the past, still in vogue in the offices of daily papers, which is of an absurdity truly exquisite. It is the practice of paying by the column, or, in other words, paying a premium for verbosity, and imposing a fine upon conciseness. It will often happen that information which cost three days to procure can be well related in a paragraph, and which, if related in a paragraph, would be of very great value to the newspaper printing it. But if the reporter should compress his facts into that space, he would ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... standard form of the obituary which is followed by most daily newspapers in fair-sized cities. The form is characterized by an extreme conciseness and brevity and an absolutely impersonal tone. Very rightly, an obituary is handled with a sense of the sanctified character of its subject It offers no opportunity for fine writing or human interest; it simply gives the facts as briefly and ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... neither among them nor among those writers who are peculiarly the delight of the spuriously literate: Sallust, who is less colorless than the others; sentimental and pompous Titus Livius; turgid and lurid Seneca; watery and larval Suetonius; Tacitus who, in his studied conciseness, is the keenest, most wiry and muscular of them all. In poetry, he was untouched by Juvenal, despite some roughshod verses, and by Persius, despite his mysterious insinuations. In neglecting Tibullus and Propertius, Quintilian and the Plinies, ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... The quantity of thought and observation in this work, for so young a man as Pope was when he wrote it, is wonderful: unless we adopt the supposition, that most men of genius spend the rest of their lives in teaching others what they themselves have learned under twenty. The conciseness and felicity of the expression is equally remarkable. Thus in reasoning on the variety ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... and one look at the captain's face made him suspect that the moment for knowing the truth had arrived. Avoiding his glance, Ulysses told him curtly, trying to evade by the conciseness of his ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... declarations or "bills of rights".[31] All drafts of the French Declaration, from those of the cahiers to the twenty-one proposals before the National Assembly, vary more or less from the original, either in conciseness or in breadth, in cleverness or in awkwardness of expression. But so far as substantial additions are concerned they present only doctrinaire statements of a purely theoretical nature or elaborations, which belong to the realm of political metaphysics. To enter upon them here is unnecessary. ...
— The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens • Georg Jellinek
... in its motive, though the composer has been charged with taking it from "La Femme de Tabarin," by the French novelist, Catulle Mendes. Be this as it may, Leoncavallo's version has the merit of brevity, conciseness, ingenuity, and swift action, closing in a denouement of great tragic power and capable, in the hands of a good actor, of being made very effective. The composer has not alone been charged with borrowing the story, ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... The latter may also have increased his use of alliteration, masterly not only in the direct imitation of the old form, as in Bergliot, but also in the enrichment of the music of his rhymed verse in modern forms. Conciseness of style in thought and word permitted no lyrical elaboration of figures or descriptions; it restricted the poet to brief hints of the ways his spirit would go, and along which he wished to guide that of the hearer ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... more easily retained by him afterwards: the other may seem odd, but is true, I found I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain, than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions depends on their conciseness. I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandering from the precision, or breaking the ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... Cecilia, discouraged by this conciseness, was a few minutes silent; but the perseverance of Sir Robert in staring at her, exciting her own in trying to avoid his eyes, she exerted herself so far as to add, "Does Mrs Mears expect Miss Larolles ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... as a poet, was lost sight of generally as a philosopher. The matter is made clearer still if we add that his style in the "Mekor Hayim" is against him. It is devoid of all merit whether of literary beauty or of logical conciseness and brevity. It is diffuse to a degree and frequently very wearisome and tedious. One has to wade through pages upon pages of bare syllogisms, one more ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... importance, something that would revolutionize thought?" Now Lanier was filled with the spirit of making contributions, however insignificant, to the development of scholarship in some one direction. He restates, for instance, with remarkable insight and conciseness, the investigations of Fleay, Edward Dowden, and other members of the New Shakespeare Society, as to the metrical development seen in Shakespeare's plays. But he adds to their investigations a suggestion as to the greater freedom with ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... are many and great; his conciseness, repression of personal feeling, love of accuracy, careful research, unwillingness to praise overmuch and his total absence of preconceived opinion testify to an honesty of outlook rare in classical historians. Because he feels certain of his detachment ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... Temperance Union for the same length of time. In December, 1890, she was appointed Union Signal reporter for the State Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and her reports have called forth warm commendation from editors and constituency alike for their conciseness and ...
— Two Decades - A History of the First Twenty Years' Work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the State of New York • Frances W. Graham and Georgeanna M. Gardenier
... consideration; to this his scenery is but the setting and background. He is never carried away by the force or beauty of his drawing as a smaller artist might have been. The picture is given with simple conciseness, and he leaves it; nor does he ever attempt to elaborate a detail into a separate poem. The description of the burn in Hallowe'en is most beautiful in itself, yet it is but a ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... the room, with downcast eyes and folded arms. Methodical and rational to the end, he collected his thoughts for the last time and reviewed the result of his melancholy reflexions, forcing himself to state the facts with the utmost plainness and conciseness, as though he were summing up the case before the jury of his faculties, upon whom depended the final verdict. Too wise to die in vain, too brave to die for a selfish motive, too noble to be influenced by any fear of death itself, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... into the forests and jungles, out upon the endless, sparsely settled pampas, and eventually into the remote village that witnessed the passing every second day of a primitive and far from dependable railway train, was presented with agreeable simplicity and conciseness. He passed briefly over what might have been expanded into grave experiences, and at last came, so to speak, to the gates of the city, unharmed, resolute and full of the fire that ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... studied the models of classical art with care. His unerring sense of form, his artistic restraint in a day when caprice was the ruling fashion, and the conciseness of his expression, are doubtless due to classical influence. But, at the same time, he was an innovator, one of the first forerunners of modern realism. He describes and characterizes with careful, often microscopic detail; his psychological analysis ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... people of great acuteness, and of singular knowledge of details. Every considerable man in Bivouac soon had his social station assigned him, the whole community being divided into classes of "hundred-thousand-dollar monikins"—"fifty-thousand-dollar monikins"—"twenty-thousand-dollar monikins." Great conciseness in language was a consequence of this state of feeling. The old questions of "is he honest?" "is he capable?" "is he enlightened?" "is he wise?" "is he good?" being all comprehended in the single interrogatory of "is ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Speeches. By CHARLES HARTLEY. Contents: Introduction, Power of Art, Various Kinds of Oratory, Prepared Speech, Constructing a Speech, Short Speeches, Command of Language, Reading and Thinking, Style, Hasty Composition, Forming a Style, Copiousness and Conciseness, Diction or Language, Purity and Propriety, Misapplied Words, Monosyllables, Specific Terms, Variety of Language, Too Great Care about Words, Epithets, Precision, Synonymes, Perspicuity, Long and Short Sentences, Tropes and Figures, Metaphor, ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... to possess a character of its own; and even individual peasants therein seemed to have taken on certain qualities peculiar to themselves. For instance, to the majority of Madame Korobotchka's serfs there were appended nicknames and other additions; Plushkin's list was distinguished by a conciseness of exposition which had led to certain of the items being represented merely by Christian name, patronymic, and a couple of dots; and Sobakevitch's list was remarkable for its amplitude and circumstantiality, in that not a single ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... his Plan with abundance of erudition, and an astonishing depth of enquiry. He has introduced nothing but facts well supported, or theological discussions delivered with the greatest conciseness and accuracy. Such readers as aim at amusement only, will think the author too minute in some places; those who are desirous of information will think otherwise. The most valuable part of this work ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... either his mother or cousin made the least attempt to stem his rising anger. Far from it. Lady Gertrude had expressed her opinion with a conciseness that was ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... the epigram in its first intention may be described as a very short poem summing up as though in a memorial inscription what it is desired to make permanently memorable in any action or situation. It must have the compression and conciseness of a real inscription, and in proportion to the smallness of its bulk must be highly finished, evenly balanced, simple, and lucid. In literature it holds something of the same place as is held in art by an engraved gem. But if the definition of ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... from an illiterate person. Pleasure, indeed, has a secret charm; and the things which please seem less tedious. A pleasant and smooth road, tho it be longer, fatigues less than a rugged and disagreeable short cut. I am not so fond of conciseness as not to make room for brightening a narration with proper embellishments. If quite homely and curtailed on all sides, it will be not so much a narration as a poor ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... serious reading, such as Cicero, Quintilian, and the Fathers of the Church, formed the mental pabulum of the people. In our days the beauty of a sentence is less sought after than its clearness and conciseness. ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... this letter more than once. She liked it none the less for being disconnected and unbusiness-like. She had seen her Arthur's business letters; models of courteous conciseness. She did not value such compositions. This one she did. She smiled over it, all beaming and blushing; she kissed it, and read it again, and sat with it ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... at the conciseness and appropriateness of the expressions she readily found, in the midst of her violent emotion, her sobs, and her tears. She finished by saying that she was going to Montmartre to mourn the misfortunes of her brother, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... bill was sent up to the house of lords, a long debate arose upon the number of troops voted for the ensuing year. Lord Carteret explained the situation of affairs, in almost every nation of Europe, with great conciseness and precision. He demonstrated the improbability of a rupture between Great Britain and any power against which a land army could be of any service. He examined the domestic circumstances of the nation; and proved that whatever discontents there might be in the kingdom, there ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... according to the flesh.' 'This,' he adds, 'was used not only by his own party, but also by those who followed the teaching of the Apostles, as they had not perceived the mischievous design of the composition, but in their simplicity made use of the book on account of its conciseness.' Theodoret found more than two hundred copies in the churches of his diocese (Cyrrhus in Syria), which he removed and replaced with the works of the ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday |
