We've compiled the best and most interesting brevity quotes, and quotes about life that will aid your communication and writing skills.
The word brevity means to be exact, precise, and concise in using words, whether in writing or speech. It is the art of eloquently saying deeper words with conciseness.
Brevity quotes make you understand words in their truth and plain meaning. There are favorite quotes from classical authors like Williams Shakespeare and Josh billings. They have dwelled on making deeper thoughts about brevity and quotes relevant on many occasions.
Interesting Brevity Quotes
How about brevity quotes sounding interesting? Enjoy a compilation below.
“Brevity is the soul of wit.” - William Shakespeare
"If brevity is the soul of wit then brevity and levity are the whole of it." - Michael R. Burch
"Brevity and conciseness are the parents of correction." - Hosea Ballou
“Brevity is the sister of talent.” - Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
“The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” - Vladimir Nabokov
"Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon." - Edsger Dijkstra
"If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if an hour, I am ready now." - Woodrow Wilson.
"Brevity is the soul of lingerie." - Dorothy Parker
“Be sincere, Be brief, Be seated.” - Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, and to have the two as close together as possible.” - George Burns
“It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
“Brevity of the Neophyte signifies something big is in Embryonic stage and that is why perplexed people often become Bellicose.” - Pratibha Singh
"There’s a great power in words if you don’t hitch too many of them together." - Josh Billings
“But I hasten to finish my story. Brevity is justified at once to those who readily understand, and to those who will never understand.” - George Eliot
"Six principles that make for a good story: 1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality: flee the stereotype; 6. compassion." - Anton Chekhov
'The little things are what is eternal, and the rest, all the rest, is brevity, extreme brevity." - Antonio Porchia
"Brevity may be the soul of wit, but not when someone's saying I love you." - Judith Viorst
“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.” - Mark Twain
“Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.” - William Shakespeare
Best Brevity Quotes
The following are the best brevity quotes you will come across. They are sayings of great people.
“Writing is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent elimination.” - Louise Brooks
"You evidently feel that brevity is the soul of widowhood." - Hector Hugh Munro
“Life is too short to stuff a mushroom.” - Shirley Conran
"Brevity in writing is very powerful.” - Lance Greenfield
“You can say too much without talking too much.” - Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“Poems and epitaphs are but stuff; here lies Bob Barras, and that's enough.” - Richard De'Ath
"To Dewey, if brevity was the soul of wit, the stagecraft was the very center of politics." - David Pietrusza
“Like all sweet dreams, it will be brief, but brevity makes sweetness, doesn’t it?” - Stephen King
“The reason why he wrote while standing up: Nothing conduces to brevity like a caving in of the knees.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"When a sentence is made stronger, it usually becomes shorter. Thus, brevity is a by-product of vigor." - William Strunk Jr.
“It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
"Like all sweet dreams, it will be brief, but brevity makes sweetness, doesn't it?" - Stephen King
“The definition of Brevity: That which people believe would be a virtue – in me!” - Greg Curtis
"The old, slow, creaking descriptions are a thing of the past; today the rule is brevity - but every word must be supercharged, high-voltage." - Yevgeny Zamyatin.
"The little things are what is eternal, and the rest, all the rest, is brevity, extreme brevity." - Antonio Porchia
"It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all that he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his readers are sure to skip them." - John Ruskin
"True brevity of expression consists in a man only saying what is worth saying, while avoiding all diffuse explanations of things which everyone can think out for himself." - Arthur Schopenhauer
"I find it satisfying and intellectually stimulating to work with the intensity, brevity, balance, and word play of the short story." - Annie Proulx
"Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity." - Jean De La Bruyere
"In the pleading of cases, nothing pleases so much as brevity." - Pliny The Younger
"There’s great power in words if you don’t hitch too many of them together." - Josh Billings
" A few sentences are enough, to tell the truth." - Robert Sarah
"The secret to good writing is to use small words for big ideas, not to use big words for small ideas." - Oliver Markus Malloy
“For the sake of brevity, we will always represent this number 2. 718281828459… By the letter e.” - Leonhard Euler
Thought-Provoking Brevity Quotes
These brevity quotes enhance the reasoning moments quite well.
"To write good poems is the secret of brevity." - Dejan Stojanovic.
" It is such a great fault to talk too much that, in business and conversation, if what is good is also brief, it is doubly good, and one gains by brevity what one often loses by an excess of words." - Madeleine de Souvre
"Every epigram should resemble a bee; it should have a sting, honey, and brevity." - Martial
“Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain about brevity.” - Jean de La Bruyere
“We have deemed all these words necessary in order to explain that we have been traveling more slowly than was predicted; concision is not a definitive virtue; on occasion, one loses out by talking too much, it is true, but how much has also been gained by saying more than was strictly necessary.” - José Saramago.
"The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do." - Thomas Jefferson
“Through an arbitrary problem, I had arrived at a tenet of good writing: brevity wins.” - Michael Winter
"No weapons are more potent than brevity and simplicity." - Katherine Cecil Thurston
"Brevity never fatigues; therefore, brevity is always a welcome guest." - Theophile Gautier
"If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought." - Dennis Roth
"I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter." - Blaise Pascal
“Short stories consume you faster. They’re connected to brevity. With the short story, you are up against mortality. I know how tough they are as a form, but they’re also a total joy.” - Ali Smith
“Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.” - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"You evidently feel that brevity is the soul of widowhood." - Hector Hugh Munro
“If you can say it in a paragraph, don’t write a book.” - Frank Sonnenberg
“They say that “time is of the essence.” But what if time is the “essence” and the urgency is not in using it quickly before it’s gone, but in using it wisely while it’s going?” - Craig D. Lounsbrough
“The peak is the exact moment when it takes courage to change. Forgetting that nothing is permanent is like throwing yourself into the sea of failure.” - Vinícius Montgomery de Miranda
“Flowers remind me of the beauty and brevity of life. They teach patience as you await some to bloom, enhancing their beauty. And then they're gone." - Sanjo Jendayi
"This is a brief life, but in its brevity, it offers us some splendid moments, some meaningful adventures." - Rudyard Kipling
"Never be so brief as to become obscure." - Tryon Edwards
"Brevity in writing is what charity is to all other virtues - righteousness is nothing without the one, nor authorship without the other." - Sydney Smith
“Personally, I am more impressed by the simplicity, and clarity; it is the mark of a writer who knows his subject well and is secure enough not to ‘lay it on’ in the telling. Aim for the complexity of thought, not expression.” - Noah Lukeman
“He who writes distichs, wishes, I suppose, to please by brevity. But, tell me, of what avail is their brevity, when there is a whole book full of them?” - Marcus Valerius Martial
"A parsimony of words prodigal of sense." - Benjamin Disraeli
"My liege, and madam, to expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is the day, night night, and time is time, Were nothing but to waste night, day and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief." - William Shakespeare
"Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity." - Jean De La Bruyere
“I find it satisfying and intellectually stimulating to work with the intensity, brevity, balance and word play of the short story.” - Annie Proulx
Brevity Quotes about Life
These are brevity quotes about life. They serve as guides to everyone in their day-to-day activities.
"Vocations almost always involve tasks that transcend a lifetime. They almost always involve throwing yourself into a historical process. They involve compensating for the brevity of life by finding membership in a historic commitment." - David Brooks
"If human lives are, for their very brevity, sweet, then beast lives are sweeter still. " - Isobelle Carmody
“Because of the brevity of life, the Bible warns that we should be prepared to meet God at all times.” - Billy Graham
“If we fully comprehend the brevity of life, our greatest desire would be to please God and to serve one another.” - Dr. James Dobson
“It is the brevity of life which makes it tolerable; its experiences have value because they have an end.” - Winifred Holtby
“When a sentence is made stronger, it usually becomes shorter. Thus, brevity is a by-product of vigor.” - William Strunk Jr.
"Let those who thoughtfully consider the brevity of life remember the length of eternity." - Thomas Ken
"If human lives are, for their very brevity, sweet, then beast lives are sweeter still." - Isobelle Carmody
"For effective communication, use brevity. Jesus said, ‘Follow me.’ Now that’s brief! He could be brief because of all that he was that he didn’t have to say." - Jim Rohn
"The brevity of human life gives a melancholy to the profession of the architect." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
“This is a brief line, but in its brevity, it offers us some splendid moments, some meaningful adventures.” - Rudyard Kipling
“Let my life as a poet begin. I want the life of the poet. I have labored for over twelve years, one thousand pages of prose. Now, I want the easiness of poetry. The brevity of the poem.” - Maxine Hong Kingston
"Brevities are the golden formations in the quartz of literature" - James Lendall Basford
"What can the redwoods tell us about ourselves? Well, I think they can tell us something about human time. The flickering, transitory quality of human time and the brevity of human life - the necessity to love." - Richard Preston
"The brevity of life is grace to walk on your own path." - Lailah Gifty Akita
"The more you say, the fewer people remember." - Francois Fenelon
“A great many people who spend their time mourning over the brevity of life could make it seem longer if they a little more work.” - Don Marquis
"With this sense of the splendor of our experience and its awful brevity, gathering all we are into one desperate effort to see and touch, we shall hardly have time to make theories about the things we see and touch." - Walter Pater
“Many things prevent knowledge, including the obscurity of the subject and the brevity of human life.” - Protagoras
“It was almost funny. Life seemed downright accidental in its brevity, and death a punch line to a lousy joke.” - Maureen Johnson
“On the geologic time scale, a human lifetime is reduced to a brevity that is too inhibiting to think about. The mind blocks the information.” - John McPhee
“Brevity in writing is what charity is to all other virtues – righteousness is nothing without the one, nor authorship without the other.” - Sydney Smith
“What can the redwoods tell us about ourselves, well I think they can tell us something about human time. The flickering transitory quality of human time and the brevity of human life – the necessity to love.” - Richard Preston
