Plain English Quotes

• The English, the plain English, of the politest address of a gentleman to a lady is, I am now, dear Madam, your humble servant: Pray be so good as to let me be your Lord and Master.

  Samuel Richardson

  Humble, Gentleman, Addresses

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• Men of Science would do well to talk plain English. The most abstruse questions can very well be discussed in our own tongue ... I make a particular appeal to the botanists, who appear to delight in troublesome words.

  Oliver Lodge

  Men, Delight, Tongue

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• A passage is not plain English - still less is it good English - if we are obliged to read it twice to find out what it means.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Mean, Clarity, Passages

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• A word about 'plain English.' The phrase certainly shouldn't connote drab and dreary language. Actually, plain English is typically quite interesting to read. It's robust and direct-the opposite of gaudy, pretentious language. You achieve plain English when you use the simplest, most straightforward way of expressing an idea. You can still choose interesting words. But you'll avoid fancy ones that have everyday replacements meaning precisely the same thing.

  Bryan A. Garner

  Opposites, Ideas, Interesting

  Bryan A. Garner (2013). “Legal Writing in Plain English, Second Edition: A Text with Exercises”, p.14, University of Chicago Press

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• Communists, socialists and fascists everywhere, from Mr. Obama upward, have taken to the global warming cause like a quack to colored water. Just about every word they utter on this subject is a falsehood calculated to deceive, or - in plain English - a lie.

  Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

  Lying, Taken, Water

  "Leftists are immoral: Pray for them" by Christopher Monckton, www.wnd.com. December 24, 2013.

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• Taxing Women is a must-have primer for any woman who wants to understand how our current tax system affects her family's economic condition. In plain English, McCaffery explains how the tax code stacks the deck against women and why it's in women's economic interest to lead the next great tax rebellion.

  Patricia Schroeder

  Want, Next, Rebellion

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• What Women's Lib might achieve if their 'consciousness raising' - or in plain English, brainwashing- campaign succeeds is a society whose members have identical roles but are perpetually at war with themselves; a society of males made neurotic by suppressed masculinity, of females made miserable by having masculine roles thrust upon them that contradict their feminine impulses.

  Arianna Huffington

  War, Might, Succeed

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• What does purpose mean? It means the deepest desire for our short lives to mean something. . . . To speak a language of purpose is to return to first principles and to be able to answer, in plain English, the plain questions of Why? Why should we chip in to help someone else? Why should we defer gratification? Why should we care about the long term? Why should we trust anyone who seems to be limiting our ability to do what we want?

  Eric Liu

  Short Life, Mean, Long

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• Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness is the perfect companion to Mindfulness in Plain English. Written with the thoroughness and the masterful simplicity so characteristic of his teaching, Bhante Gunaratana presents essential guidelines for turning the Buddha's teachings on the Eightfold Path into living wisdom.

  Larry Rosenberg

  Teaching, Eight, Perfect

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• [The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English.

  Ben Jonson

  Conceited, Play

  1614 Bartholomew Fair, Induction.

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• It is no exaggeration to describe plain English as a fundamental tool of government.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Government, Tools, Fundamentals

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• Mathematical knowledge is not-as all Cambridge men are surely aware-the result of any special gift. It is merely the development of those conceptions of form and number which every human being possesses; and any person of average intellect can make himself a fair mathematician if he will only pay continuous attention; in plain English, think enough about the subject.

  Charles Kingsley

  Science, Men, Thinking

  Charles Kingsley (2008). “Scientific Lectures and Essays”, p.93, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• 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.

  Book, Practice, Numbers

  William Strunk Jr. (2015). “Elements of Style”, Lulu.com

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• Yes, that man acted ugly," she told us in plain English. "But throwing more ugliness back at him ain't the answer.

  Lauren Myracle

  Men, Answers, Ugly

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• Can anything be more disgusting than to hear people called 'educated' making small jokes about eating ham, and showing themselves empty of any real knowledge as to the relation of their own social and religious life to the history of the people they think themselves witty in insulting? [...] The best thing that can be said of it is, that it is a sign of the intellectual narrowness—in plain English, the stupidity which is still the average mark of our culture.

  George Eliot

  Witty, Religious, Real

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.6957, Delphi Classics

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• I didn't know shorthand either. This meant I couldn't get a good job after college. My mother kept telling me nobody wanted a plain English major. But an English major who knew shorthand would be something else again. Everybody would want her. She would be in demand among all the up-and-coming young men and she would transcribe letter after thrilling letter. The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way. I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters.

  Sylvia Plath

  Mother, Jobs, College

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• I am allowed to use plain English because everybody knows that I could use mathematical logic if I chose.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mathematical Logic, Use, Ifs

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.66, Routledge

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