The poet's aim is either to profit or to please, or to blend in one the delightful and the useful. Whatever the lesson you would convey, be brief, that your hearers may catch quickly what is said and faithfully retain it. Every superfluous word is spilled from the too-full memory.
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Ars Poetica, lines 333–37. Edward Henry Blakeney, Horace on the Art of Poetry, p. 54 (1928, reprinted 1970). Horace's message is often condensed to "Whatever advice you give, be brief". (Quidquid praecipies, esto brevis.)—line 335.