Part 14 of an occasional series



I am a collector of quotations. I have been ever since I learned how to write, I mean professionally, not in primary school.

I am particularly fond of what I like to call "pithy prose". These short quotations can cover an unlimited variety of subjects: love, religion, politics, human nature, etc. What unites them is their ability to say more in one or two sentences than could be expressed in a thousand-word treatise. It's like being able to pour a liter of liquid into a half-liter bottle.

They are superb examples of Mark Twain's famous dictum, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

In principle, all writers and public speakers are capable of producing pithy prose, but clearly some are better at it than others.

Any collection of pithy prose must necessarily be biased in terms of what it includes and excludes. I make no apologies for my selections, only for the hundreds of other meritorious quotations I had to leave out.

No one will agree with all these quotations; this was not their intention. You may even find some of them repugnant or outrageous. This was their intention.

We seldom learn anything of value from what we already agree with. Only those ideas that grate on our nerves can open our minds. As with oysters, irritation can produce pearls. So if anything you are about to read annoys or shocks you, try to think clearly and dispassionately about what it is saying. You will either be confirmed in your current belief or shaken into re-examining it.

Either way, you win!

This article is part of an occasional series. In each article, I will be offering more amusing, educating, and exasperating quotations to your judgment. But just to be certain that we agree on what we are talking about, here it is in a nutshell.

Pithy Prose: A quotation where at first you may not be quite certain what it means. But when you become certain, you become equally certain that it couldn't have been said better any other way. In short, big ideas in small packages.

If you have a better definition of pithy prose, please contact me. I would love to hear it.

Who Is Elbert Hubbard?

Elbert Green Hubbard (1856 - 1915) was an American philosopher, lecturer, critic, publisher, novelist, essayist, and biographer, and was an influential exponent of the Arts and Crafts movement. He is probably best known for his essay "A Message to Garcia", which became the basis for two motion pictures. He also wrote "Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great" (Vols. 1-9), a series of one hundred and eighty biographies of highly influential literary figures including Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Jonathan Swift, and William Shakespeare.

1. A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.

2. A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in the experience.

3. A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.

4. A pessimist? That's a person who has been intimately acquainted with an optimist.

5. A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.

6. An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy to be called an idea at all.

7. Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.

8. God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas, but for scars.

9. He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

10. If you can't answer a man's arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.

11. In order to have friends, you must first be one.

12. It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires great strength to decide on what to do.

13. It's pretty hard to be efficient without being obnoxious.

14. Little minds are interested in the extraordinary; great minds in the commonplace.

15. No one ever gets far unless he accomplishes the impossible at least once a day.

16. One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

17. Our desires always disappoint us, for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction, yet it never thoroughly answers our expectation.

18. Pray that success will not come any faster than you are able to endure it.

19. So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs.

20. The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.

21. The church saves sinners, but science seeks to stop their manufacture.

22. The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment.

23. The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you'll make one.

24. The highest reward that God gives us for good work is the ability to do better work.

25. The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods.

26. The man who knows it can't be done counts the risk, not the reward.

27. The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without his teacher.

28. The supernatural is the natural not yet understood.

29. The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

30. There is no failure except in no longer trying.

31. There is something that is much more scarce, something far finer, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.

32. To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

33. We are not punished for our sins, but by them.

34. We work to become, not to acquire.

Previously in this series

Part 1 Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Mark Twain

Part 2: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Oscar Wilde

Part 3: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of People Named "W"

Part 4: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Anatole France

Part 5: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Ambrose Bierce

Part 6: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Friedrich Nietzsche

Part 7: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Anon

Part 8: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of People Named "H"

Part 9: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Johann Goethe

Part 10: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Eric Hoffer

Part 11: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Blaise Pascal

Part 12: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Robert Frost

Part 13: More Wit & Wisdom of Anon

Philip Yaffe is a former reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal and a marketing communication consultant. He currently teaches a course in good writing and good speaking in Brussels, Belgium. His recently published book In the ?I? of the Storm: the Simple Secrets of Writing & Speaking (Almost) like a Professional is available from Story Publishers in Ghent, Belgium (storypublishers.be) and Amazon (amazon.com).