"Terseness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... formed by the English reader of the extreme terseness of these verses by attending to the elaborations contained within the parentheses above. The exigencies of English grammar as also of perspicuity have obliged me to use, even in the portions unenclosed, more words than what occur in the original Sanskrit. All these verses ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... seems to me worth a good deal more money than all the modern 'delineation of character', and 'folk' nonsense ever written. What verve! What terseness! And yet ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... York as a place of temporary residence; but what appalled him was the free and easy criticisms he was credited with having made on his own contemporaries in England. The principal points of each were summed up with a great deal of terseness and force, and in many cases were laughably true to life. It was evident that whoever touched up that interview possessed a very clear opinion and very accurate knowledge of the art ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... as I am able to understand the subject, the tendency of all Japanese poetry is to terse expression. Were it not well therefore to consider at least the possible result of a totally opposite tendency,—expansion of fancy, luxuriance of expression? Terseness of expression, pithiness, condensation, are of vast importance in prose, but poetry has other methods, and the "Kalevala" is one of the best possible object lessons in the study of such methods, because of the very simplicity and naturalness ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... selectmen, with the fine contempt of the narrow man for his unpaid "help," had labelled, "For Females." If they had said that he was "perfectly horrid," there might have been a chance for him. But the subject was begun and ended with these three words. Such terseness in the sex was remarkable and would have deserved a psychological investigation had it been based on any apparent data. But women's opinions are so largely a matter of instinct and feeling, and so little of judgment and induction, that an analysis of the mental processes ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... Lindsay Gordon, and again Kipling have attained celebrity. As these poems echo the far-off ring of the ancient ballad, so we may venture to surmise that the short prose story of adventure, which appeals to modern taste by its vivid reality, its terseness of style, and its picturesque outline, represents the latest form reached by Romance in its long evolution. Such a tale will squeeze into fifty or a hundred pages what Fenimore Cooper or G. P. R. James would have distended into three volumes of slow-moving narrative, whereby ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... light gleamed on the opposite wall and the reflection of the curtains in Alice Renwick's window was distinctly visible. Then a sturdy masculine shadow appeared, and there was a rustling above, and then, with exasperating, mysterious, and epigrammatic terseness, a deep voice propounded the ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... words as effective instruments of communication. Language oscillates, to speak metaphorically, between algebra and music. To be useful as an instrument of thought it should keep to the prosaic terseness of a telegraphic code. One should be able to pass immediately from the word to the thing, instead of dissolving in emotions at the associations that the mere sound or music of the epithet arouses. Words should, so to speak, tend to business, which, in ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... Rome's—a formula exquisite in the civility with which it exacted the renunciation of every inherent right. A king wrote to the senate: "I have obeyed your deputy as I would have obeyed a god." "And you have done wisely," the senate answered, a reply which, in its terseness, tells all. ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... times in all Jewish circles, and there is no real parallel to them in any other literature. More will be said later on as to these curious works. So far as the Gaonic period is concerned, the characteristics of these thousands of letters are lucidity of thought and terseness of expression. The Gaonim never waste a word. They are rarely over-bearing in manner, but mostly use a tone which is persuasive rather than disciplinary. The Gaonim were, in this real sense, therefore, ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... later she received her letter back with a stamped legend across its face informing her with dreadful terseness that the party to whom the letter was addressed was deceased. She divined a blunder, but for all that, and with conflicting emotions, sought confirmation in the daily press. There, at the very end of the ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... innocent," so as to be saved from the guillotine. He therefore addressed a protest to both representatives of the people who had ordered his arrest, and this protest, which he dictated to his friend Junot, who had finally succeeded in coming to Bonaparte, is so extraordinary and so peculiar in its terseness of style, in its expressions of political sentiment; it furnishes so important a testimony of the republican democratic opinions of the young twenty-six-year-old general, that we cannot but ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... face." Such criticisms are out of date now. The faults of Gibbon's style are obvious enough, and its compensatory merits are not far to seek. No one can overlook its frequent tumidity and constant want of terseness. It lacks suppleness, ease, variety. It is not often distinguished by happy selection of epithet, and seems to ignore all delicacy of nuance. A prevailing grandiloquence, which easily slides into pomposity, is its ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... to start lamely enough, in spite of the exquisite grace of his voice, and manner, and language, and the epigrammatic terseness of every sentence. He spent some minutes over the inscription of the psalm—allegorised it—made it mean something which it never did mean in the writer's mind, and which it, as Raphael well knew, never could mean, for his interpretation ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... The charm of the primitive story-tellers has given the tale inimitable morning-dew freshness. This seems to result from a fine simplicity, a sprightly visualization, a quaint picturesqueness, a pleasing terseness, and an ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... Commons do not represent the people." Meanwhile a writer who styled himself Junius attacked the Government in letters, which, rancorous and unscrupulous as was their tone, gave a new power to the literature of the Press by their clearness and terseness of statement, the finish of their style, and the terrible vigour of ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... There are, indeed, some writers of the present day who seem returning to the statement of facts rather than their adornment, but these are not the most generally admired. This simplicity, however, to be truly effective must be unstudied; it will not do to write with affected terseness, a charge which, I think, may be fairly preferred against Tacitus; such a style if ever effective must be so from excess of artifice and not from that artlessness of simplicity which I should wish to ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... mean he has gone out of town?" The girl had looked up in surprise at the crisp terseness of ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... straight from the shoulder, colloquial, slangy. He dealt often in the first person and the present tense. He told a plain tale from its simple beginning to its simple end. But Pete—. His language had all Honey's simplicity lined terseness and, in addition, he had the literary touch, both the dramatist's instinct and the fictionist's insight. His stories always ran up to a psychological climax; but this was always disguised by the best narratory tricks. He was one of those men of whom people always say, "if he could only write ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... situation has to be noted. The Japanese language was then undergoing a transition. In order to fit it to the Chinese ideographs for literary purposes, it was being deprived of its mellifluous polysyllabic character and reduced to monosyllabic terseness. The older words were disappearing, and with them many of the old traditions. Temmu saw that if the work of compilation was abandoned solely to princely and official litterateurs, they would probably sacrifice on the altar ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... fashionable boarding-house then kept by an aunt of mine, at the corner of Second and Thirteenth streets. He never said anything while there, until he came to pay his board bill, when bidding my aunt farewell, he observed: "Mrs. SAGOE, for terseness and brevity, your steaks surpass any I have ever met with." Aunt Sarah had these words neatly framed, and they have hung in her back parlor to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... steam-whistle shrills several times on the boundless expanse where meet sky and earth. The steamer, floating gently like a hollow reed, sails out of the Middle Kingdom."[203] But we must not envy Chinese its terseness unduly. Our more sprawling mode of expression is capable of its own beauties, and the more compact luxuriance of Latin style has its loveliness too. There are almost as many natural ideals of literary style as there are languages. Most of these are merely potential, awaiting the hand of ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... can call you any thing but 'Mr. Knightley.' I will not promise even to equal the elegant terseness of Mrs. Elton, by calling you Mr. K.—But I will promise," she added presently, laughing and blushing—"I will promise to call you once by your Christian name. I do not say when, but perhaps you may guess where;—in the building in which N. takes M. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... record of the Admiral who met and destroyed it was to be seen in Reigate Church, except the inscription on the coffin in the Howards' vault. Then, at last, the inscription was copied and placed on a brass in the chancel. Its terseness fits the ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... her mother-in-law. But it was really the fact that they had the air of letters written by someone who was sceptical of the very existence of the addressee and had sent them merely to humour some third person. And where the expressions were strong she felt that they were qualified by their own terseness. Old people, she felt, ought to write fluently kind things in a running Italian hand. She was annoyed too by the way Richard always spoke of her as Marion. Even the anecdotes he recounted to show how brave and wise his mother was left Ellen a little tight-lipped. ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... of his very highest poetical powers. In Cadyow Castle you have not only that rousing trumpet-note which you hear in Marmion, but the pomp and glitter of a grand martial scene is painted with all Scott's peculiar terseness and vigour. The opening is singularly happy in preparing the reader for the description of a violent deed. The Earl of Arran, chief of the clan of Hamiltons, is chasing among the old oaks of Cadyow Castle,—oaks which belonged to the ancient ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... an answer. Pamphleteering was one of the principal diversions of the age. "Coffee-Houses Vindicated" was the title of the reply. The second pamphlet was not the equal of the first in terseness or wit, but it had the advantage in argument. The writer did not find it difficult to make out a good case for the coffee-house. It was economical, conduced to sobriety, and provided innocent diversion. When one had to meet a friend, ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... the growth of superstition, which destroys the primeval innocence; but why or when does not very clearly appear; yet, though the general theory is incoherent, he catches a distinct view of one aspect of the question and expresses a tolerably trite view of the question with singular terseness. Who, he asks,— ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... the curtain was withdrawn, with a sort of savage terseness, the subject of the impending scene. The groups did not continue long; a pause of half a minute, and the circular stage revolved, and the curtain again closed. This rapidity of representation was necessary, lest delay should compromise the ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... labor of years, and which placed him at once in the front rank of poets. About the same time, whether before or after remains uncertain, is to be placed his incomparable volume of epistles, which in grace, ease, good sense and wit mark as high a level as the odes do in terseness, melody, and exquisite finish. These two works are Horace's great achievement. The remainder of his writings demand but brief notice. They are the "Carmen Seculare;" a fourth book of odes, with all the perfection ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... part of Quintilian to Seneca's achievements as a tragedian is easily explained on the supposition that the critic regarded them as but an insignificant portion of his work. Yet stronger confirmation is afforded by the internal evidence. The verse is marked by the same brilliant but fatiguing terseness, the same polish and point, the same sententiousness, the same succession of short stabbing sentences, that mark the prose works of Seneca.[165] More remarkable still is the close parallelism of thought. The plays are permeated through and ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... it, though still with an indignant gravity that impresses the young Bagnets, and even causes Mr. Bagnet to defer the ceremony of drinking Mrs. Bagnet's health, always given by himself on these occasions in a speech of exemplary terseness. But the young ladies having composed what Mr. Bagnet is in the habit of calling "the mixtur," and George's pipe being now in a glow, Mr. Bagnet considers it his duty to proceed to the toast of the evening. He addresses the assembled company in ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... convent as in the world; above all in its sympathetic and tender instinct for the needs and difficulties of her daughters. The Perfection represents the finished and magnificent fabric of the spiritual life. Her words ring with a strange terseness and earnestness as she here pens her spiritual testament. She points out the mischievous foibles, the little meannesses, the spirit of cantankerousness and strife, which long experience of the cloister had shown her were the besetting sins of the conventual ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte |
