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When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men’s minds may take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.

— Horace Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (-18)

Quidquid praecipies, esto brevis, ut cito dicta
percipiant animi dociles teneantque fideles:
omne supervacuum pleno de pectore manat.

Original text (Latin)

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Notes from Wikiquote

Lines 335–337; Edward Charles Wickham translation

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Attribution

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