A Quote by Edmund Burke

It may be observed, that very polished languages, and such as are praised for their superior clearness and perspicuity, are generally deficient in strength.

Edmund Burke

Quote Topics

Clearness Generally Languages May Observed Polished Praised Strength Superior Very

Quote Author

Edmund Burke
Irish - Statesman
January 12, 1729 - July 9, 1797

Carefully compare the opposing army with your own, so that you may know where strength is superabundant and where it is deficient.

Sun Tzu

There are more useful systems developed in languages deemed awful than in languages praised for being beautiful - many more.

Bjarne Stroustrup

Strength may wield the ponderous spade, May turn the clod, and wheel the compost home; But elegance, chief grace the garden shows, And most attractive, is the fair result Of thought, the creature of a polished mind.

William Cowper

Have you not observed that faith is generally strongest in those whose character may be called the weakest?

Madame de Stael

The perfection of style consists in the use of the exact speech necessary to convey the sense in the fewest words consistent with perspicuity, at the same time having regard to appropriateness and harmony of expression. Its greater excellencies are directness, accuracy, appropriateness and perspicuity.

Joseph P. Bradley

The business, task or object of the scientific study of languages will if possible be 1) to trace the history of all known languages. Naturally this is possible only to a very limited extent and for very few languages.

Ferdinand de Saussure

Five hundred words a day is what I aim for. And I don't go on to the next chapter until I've polished and polished and polished the one I'm working on.

Elinor Lipman

I am not of the opinion generally entertained in this country [England], that man lives by Greek and Latin alone; that is, by knowing a great many words of two dead languages, which nobody living knows perfectly, and which are of no use in the common intercourse of life. Useful knowledge, in my opinion, consists of modern languages, history, and geography; some Latin may be thrown into the bargain, in compliance with custom, and for closet amusement.

Lord Chesterfield

I made the greater progress, from that clearness of head and quicker apprehension which generally attend temperance in eating and drinking.

Benjamin Franklin

Where we cannot invent, we may at least improve; we may give somewhat of novelty to that which was old, condensation to that which was diffuse, perspicuity to that which was obscure, and currency to that which was recondite.

Charles Caleb Colton

Probe him and learn where his strength is abundant and where deficient.

Sun Tzu

A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.

John Adams

To use two languages familiarly and without contaminating one by the other, is very difficult; and to use more than two is hardly to be hoped. The prizes which some have received for their multiplicity of languages may be sufficient to excite industry, but can hardly generate confidence.

Samuel Johnson

Observation is like a piece of glass, which, as a mirror, must be very smooth, and must be very carefully polished, in order that it may reflect the image pure and undistorted.

Justus von Liebig

Here and there, human nature may be great in times of trial, but generally speaking it is its weakness and not its strength that appears in a sick chamber.