A man's grammar, like Caesar's wife, must not only be pure, but above suspicion of impurity.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of using proper grammar, as it reflects one's integrity and credibility.
Edgar Allan Poe suggests that just as Caesar's wife had to be above suspicion in her purity, so too must a man's grammar be flawless and beyond criticism. This comparison highlights the idea that language and its precision are crucial to one's reputation and authority, implying that communication should be clear and respectable to be effective.
In practice
During a writing workshop, you might say this quote to emphasize the importance of grammatical precision.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.
Consequently he who wishes to attain to human perfection, must therefore first study Logic, next the various branches of Mathematics in their proper order, then Physics, and lastly Metaphysics.
Good teachers never say anything. What they do is create the conditions under which learning takes place.
Because I don't have to be careful of people's feelings when I teach literature, and I do when I'm teaching writing.
Order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of a subject.
To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.