The Quotation IndexThe trusted reference for quotations and the sources behind them
Subcategory Literature Authorship

Featured

The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no time to make it shorter.
Blaise Pascal The Provincial Letters · 1656-1657

Authorship Quotations

“The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no time to make it shorter.”

Blaise Pascal · The Provincial Letters, 1656-1657 · Primary source

“Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men’s lives.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“The muses love the morning.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and leathern boxes; and though they know us, and have been waiting two, ten, or twenty centuries for us.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Books, 1870 · Primary source

“Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“I must Create a System, or be enslav’d by another Mans
I will not Reason & Compare: my business is to Create”

William Blake · Jerusalem: The Emanation of The Giant Albion, 1804 · Primary source

“It was wonderful to walk down the long flights of stairs knowing that I’d had good luck working. I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“This was omitted on my new theory that you could omit anything if you knew that you omitted and the omitted part would strengthen the story and make people feel something more than they understood.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

Explore the subcategory

Authorship

6 authors · 6 works · 18 themes · 41 tags
Authors
Benjamin Franklin American statesmanRalph Waldo Emerson American essayist and philosopherHenry David Thoreau American writer and philosopher
Works
Poor Richard’s Almanack Benjamin Franklin · 1732-1758Walden Henry David Thoreau · 1849Books Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1870
Themes
Brevity requires effortRevision and clarityWriting from lived experience
Tags
RevisionWriting craftWriting disciplineConciseness
✓Copied