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I know, if anyone does — all research workers know — how much is missed that really matters because reports have to be written in officialese. They have to be, because a lot of us can't take anything seriously unless you make it dull for them.

— Edmund Clerihew Bentley Trent's Own Case (1936)

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More quotes by Edmund Clerihew Bentley

That is almost the definition of any friendship that is worthwhile — that we don't care a damn how you behave yourself.

Trent's Own Case (1936)

Is it a cosmic law, d'you think, that conceited men's hats are always too small?

Trent Intervenes (1938)

Trent read and re-read the pitiful message [a suicide note], so full of the awful egotism of grief.

Trent Intervenes (1938)

When their lordships asked Bacon How many bribes he had taken He had at least the grace To get very red in the face.

What I like about Clive
Is that he is no longer alive.
There is a great deal to be said
For being dead.

Clerihews: Biography for Beginners (1905)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Edmund Clerihew Bentley (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.