Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.
John RuskinRead
Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.
Interpretation
Be clear and concise in your communication to ensure understanding.
This quote emphasizes the importance of brevity and clarity in communication. John Ruskin suggests that by using fewer words, one can capture the reader's attention, and by using simple language, one can ensure that the message is understood correctly, avoiding any potential misunderstandings.
In practice
In a writing workshop, a facilitator might use this quote to encourage participants to be clear and concise in their essays.
Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.
In health of mind and body, men should see with their own eyes, hear and speak without trumpets, walk on their feet, not on wheels, and work and war with their arms, not with engine-beams, nor rifles warranted to kill twenty men at a shot before you can see them.
You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth of Time: I tell you, Time is scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm - we who smite like the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish - ourselves who consume: we are the mildew, and the flame.
To be able to ask a question clearly is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered.
See that your children be taught, not only the labors of the earth, but the loveliness of it.
A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.
Natural inclinations are assisted and reinforced by education, but they are hardly ever altered or overcome.
I did not throw out my education lightly, but what I was being taught was of no use in explaining what I saw around me. It was the Great Depression.
No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it.
When I left home after graduating high school, I left as a migrant agricultural worker with a Modern Library edition of Plato in my duffel bag. It sounds kind of crazy, but I loved it. I loved the stuff. Before I knew there was a subject called philosophy, I loved it.
It has been a privilege to pursue knowledge for its own sake and to see how it might help mankind in more practical ways.
When you're learning, especially to write, unless you're some incredibly gifted writer, a young Malcom Gladwell, say, you need to be imitating people. You need to be imitating how they make their work, how they structure it, how they design the pieces. It gives you chops; it gives you moves.
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