12 Quotes by Henry Watson Fowler

Pretentious quotations [are] the surest road to tedium.

Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.

We tell our thoughts, like our children, to put on their hats and coats before they go out.

Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.

Be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.

Those who run to long words are mainly the unskillful and tasteless; they confuse pomposity with dignity, flaccidity with ease, and bulk with force.

The obvious is better than obvious avoidance of it.

It need hardly be said that shortness is a merit in words.

Those who are addicted to the phrase “to use a vulgarism” expect to achieve the feat of being at once vulgar and superior to vulgarity.