Writing Quotes
The page is led by Shakespeare, then William Zinsser, the author of On Writing Well, followed by Horace and Orwell. Three old sources are worth knowing: Bacon’s Meditationes Sacræ (1597) says reading makes a full man, conference a ready man and writing an exact man; Thoreau’s journal for 1838 says it is vain to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live; and Horace’s Ars Poetica is the source for the idea that the writer wins by mixing profit with pleasure.
“Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then for your friends, then for money” is credited to Virginia Woolf and flagged misattributed. The notes quote an anecdote from a Tyrol coffee-house in which someone else says something similar. Two more flagged lines are credited to Cicero and to Menander.
'Tis well said again;
And 'tis a kind of good deed to say well:
And yet words are no deeds.
Man usually believes, if only words he hears,
That also with them goes material for thinking.
Behind the word is silence, behind that silence is forgetfulness.
The world is satisfied with words. Few appreciate the things beneath.
You [Pindar] who possessed the talent of speaking much without saying anything.
Would you repeat that again, sir, for it soun's sae sonorous that the words droon the ideas?
The subject of itself is incompatible with an ornamental style, content if it is able to instruct.
Perfection and finish of the highest kind is very hard to attain.