A Quote by Thomas B. Macaulay

Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are commonly found together. Obscurity and affectation are the two greatest faults of style. Obscurity of expression generally springs from confusion of ideas; and the same wish to dazzle, at any cost, which produces affectation in the manner of a writer, is likely to produce sophistry in his reasonings.

Thomas B. Macaulay

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Affectation Any Commonly Confusion Cost Dazzle Diction Expression Faults Found Generally Greatest His Ideas Likely Manner Obscurity Produce Produces Propriety Same Sophistry Springs Style Thought Together Two Which Wish Writer

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Thomas B. Macaulay
British - Politician
October 25, 1800 - December 28, 1859

When a new writer defends his "style," the teacher smiles (or cringes) because real style isn't an artifice. Real style - voice - arrives on its own, as an extension of a writer's character. When style is done self-consciously and purposefully it becomes affectation, and as transparent as any affectation - an English accent on an old college chum from New Jersey, for example.

Bill Roorbach

I have gone from local obscurity to national obscurity to international obscurity. Once I learn how to monetize obscurity, I will be rich.

Ernie J Zelinski

Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety.

Confucius

The obscurity of a writer is generally in proportion to his incapacity.

Quintilian

Obscurity in writing is commonly an argument of darkness in the mind. The greatest learning is to be seen in the greatest plainness.

John Wilkins

Universities incline wits to sophistry and affectation.

Jacques Barzun

He that is pushing his predecessors into the gulf of obscurity, cannot but sometimes suspect, that he must himself sink in like manner, and, as he stands upon the same precipice, be swept away with the same violence.

Samuel Johnson

Affectation is to be always distinguished from hypocrisy as being the art of counterfeiting those qualities, which we might with innocence and safety, be known to want. Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy; affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly.

Samuel Johnson

Not even a maggot is an it, and to refer to any animal in that manner is an affectation, an ignorant stab at science-speak.

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

Obscurity is just obscurity. There's no romance in obscurity.

Daryl Hall

Oh, propriety," says Mrs Benjamin. "We're always so concerned with propriety. Even in total madness, we still stick to our hierarchies and chains of command.

Robert Jackson Bennett

Profoundness, genius, spontaneity, merit, nobility, ingenuity, voice propriety, feeling, discernment, sensibility, good taste, great tone, rightness, courtliness, vivacity, boldness, style, freshness, harmony, perfection, imagination, purity, correctness. The greatest writer of all times. God's most astonishing creation.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Here I beg you to observe in passing that the scruples that prevented ancient writers from using arithmetical terms in geometry, and which can only be a consequence of their inability to perceive clearly the relation between these two subjects, introduced much obscurity and confusion into their explanations.

Rene Descartes

Obscurity, indeed, is painful to the mind as well as to the eye; but to bring light from obscurity, by whatever labour, must needsbe delightful and rejoicing.

David Hume

Speech is highly elliptical. It would scarcely be endurable otherwise. Ellipsis is indispensable to the writer or speaker who wants to be brief and pithy, but it can easily cause confusion and obscurity and must be used with skill.

Bergen Evans

I entirely agree with you about the obscurity of Mrs Browning's line about the stars. It is far-fetched. She wanted to express something which she found beyond expression.

Marie Corelli

A Quote by Thomas B. Macaulay

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