 Apart from a few simple principles, the sound and rhythm of English prose seem to me matters where both writers and readers should trust not so much to rules as to their ears. |
| A man can make himself put down what comes, even if it seems nauseating nonsense; tomorrow some of it may not seem wholly nonsense at all. |
| The most emphatic place in a clause or sentence is the end. This is the climax; and, during the momentary pause that follows, that last word continues, as it were, to reverberate in the reader's mind. It has, in fact, the last word. |
| At Munich we sold the Czechs for a few months grace, but the disgrace will last as long as history. |
| The two World Wars came in part, like much modern literature and art, because men, whose nature is to tire of everything in turn... tired of common sense and civilization. |
| And how is clarity to be achieved? Mainly by taking trouble and by writing to serve people rather than to impress them. |
| Poetry had far better imply things than preach them directly... in the open pulpit her voice grows hoarse and fails. |
| The only hope I can see for the future depends on a wiser and braver use of the reason, not a panic flight from it. |
| Most style is not honest enough. |
