Plain Language Quotes

• Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.

  William Penn

  Writing, Language Words, Words You Speak

  William Penn (1792). “Fruits of Solitude: In Reflections and Maxims Relating to the Conduct of Human Life”, p.130

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• Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

  Charles Mingus

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Music

  Charles Mingus' statement in Mainliner Magazine (July 1977); later quoted in Olivia Bertagnolli "Creativity and the writing process" (p. 182), 1982.

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• The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words.

  Hippocrates

  Writing, Use, Virtue

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• The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Inspirational, Motivational, Teaching

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• The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

  George Eliot

  Writing, Simple, Language Words

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• Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.

  William Butler Yeats

  Inspirational, Wise, Teamwork

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• The chief virtue that language can have is clarity.

  Hippocrates

  Writing, Editing, Clarity

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• The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

  George Orwell

  Truth, Real, Political Language

  "Politics and the English Language" (1946)

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• I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English - it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in.

  Mark Twain

  Flower, Writing, Simple

  Mark Twain (2016). “The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain”, p.65, Chartwell

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• Anybody can have ideas-the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.

  Mark Twain

  Writing, Ideas, Paper

  Mark Twain (1990). “Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 2: 1867-1868”, p.183, Univ of California Press

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• When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them--then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are far apart.

  Mark Twain

  Writing, Mean, Giving

  Mark Twain, Michael Patrick Hearn (1981). “The annotated Huckleberry Finn: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, Random House Value Pub

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• Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be a criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.

  Werner Heisenberg

  Understanding, Degrees, Description

  Werner Heisenberg (1962). “Physics and philosophy: the revolution in modern science”, Harpercollins College Div

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• I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English―it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them―then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.

  Mark Twain

  Flower, Writing, Mean

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• Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Communication, Imagination, Should

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2001). “On the Constitution of the Church and State”, p.326, Classic Books Company

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• Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.

  Samuel Johnson

  Inspirational, Language Words, Littles

  In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 1, p. 471 (6 August 1763, when Boswell said it would be 'terrible' if Johnson should not be able to return speedily from Harwich)

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• An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and how to avoid them.

  Werner Heisenberg

  Mistake, Failure, Math

  Der Teil und das Ganze ("The Part and the Whole," 1969) ch. 17 (translated by A. J. Pomerans in 1971 as Physics and Beyond)

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• When you catch an adjective, kill it.

  Mark Twain

  Writing, Editing, Adjectives

  Mark Twain, Michael Patrick Hearn (1981). “The annotated Huckleberry Finn: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, Random House Value Pub

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• Making the simple complicated is commonplace.

  Charles Mingus

  Creativity, Simple, Smooth Jazz

  Charles Mingus' statement in Mainliner Magazine (July 1977); later quoted in Olivia Bertagnolli "Creativity and the writing process" (p. 182), 1982.

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• If you can't describe your strategy in twenty minutes, simply and in plain language, you haven't got a plan. 'But,' people may say, 'I've got a complex strategy. It can't be reduced to a page.' That's nonsense. That's not a complex strategy. It's a complex thought about the strategy.

  Lawrence Bossidy

  People, Simplicity, Twenties

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• There is no more difficult art to acquire than the art of observation, and for some men it is quite as difficult to record an observation in brief and plain language.

  William Osler

  Art, Men, Records

  William Osler (1927). “Aequanimitas”, p.194, Ravenio Books

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• Words in prose ought to express the intended meaning; if they attract attention to themselves, it is a fault; in the very best styles you read page after page without noticing the medium. Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are, the more necessary it is to be plain.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Writing, Imagination, Style

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• The physicist may be satisfied when he has the mathematical scheme and knows how to use for the interpretation of the experiments. But he has to speak about his results also to non-physicists who will not be satisfied unless some explanation is given in plain language. Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be the criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.

  Werner Heisenberg

  Philosophy, Understanding, May

  "Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science". Book by Werner Heisenberg, 1958.

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• People in general would rather die than forgive. It's THAT hard. If God said in plain language. "I'm giving you a choice, forgive or die," a lot of people would go ahead and order their coffin.

  Sue Monk Kidd

  Order, People, Giving

  Sue Monk Kidd (2003). “The Secret Life of Bees”, p.277, Penguin

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• People of a television culture need “plain language” both aurally and visually, and will even go so far as to require it in some circumstances by law. The Gettysburg Address would probably have been largely incomprehensible to a 1985 audience.

  Neil Postman

  Law, People, Needs

  Neil Postman (2005). “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, p.46, Penguin

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• I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.

  Charles Darwin

  Family, Brother, Atheist

  Charles Darwin, Thomas Henry Huxley (1983). “Autobiographies”, Oxford University Press, USA

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