Our age, for all its weakness, reigns unchallenged in calumny and vitriol: no Mirabeaus, few Robespierres, and everywhere Marats.
Jan 192022
Writing
If it had been your exact thought you would have used my exact words.
Jan 182022
A reader more intelligent than the writer will read more than the writer intended, a reader less intelligent will read less, and a reader equally intelligent will read something entirely different.
Jan 102022
An aphorism should look wrong to half its readers and obvious to the other half.
Dec 292021
To write, to attempt to bring a stranger to one’s view by words alone, shows the deepest faith in human nature: the confirmed skeptic becomes a devout missionary when he puts it on the page.
Dec 282021
Biography is open to any writer who possesses industry without talent. If he also lacks industry, there is memoir.
Dec 152021
The shorter you write, the less you lie.
Nov 102021
Never use five words where none will do.
Nov 052021
We are apt to imagine software as scaling indefinitely, which it does not, because we think of it as a form of writing, which does.
Nov 022021
The power of a word lies in what it suggests, not what it means.
Oct 142021
The shortest way to be original is to tell the truth.