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.
There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.
The Arts and Sciences, essential to the prosperity of the State and to the ornament of human life, have a primary claim to the encouragement of every lover of his country and mankind.
In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.
The biggest thing I noticed growing up when I was doing BMX racing or playing rugby through to secondary school level, was seeing the parents who were so desperate to see their kids do well that they were almost living their lives through their kids and putting huge pressure on them to the point they weren't enjoying it.
As Olafsson showed me, White can win... It's hard to believe. I stayed up all night analysing, finally convicing myself, and, incidentally, learning a lot about Rook and Pawn endings in the process.
I think instead writers and publishers and readers need to go to the places where people are, and make the argument that there is great value to the quiet, contemplative process of reading a novel, that reading great books carefully offers pleasures and consolations that no iPad app ever can.
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