Eschew fine words as you would rouge.--HARE.
Cant is properly a double-distilled lie; the second power of a lie.--CARLYLE.
If a gentleman be to study any language, it ought to be that of his own country.--LOCKE.
In language the unknown is generally taken for the magnificent.--RICHARD GRANT WHITE.
He who has a superlative for everything, wants a measure for the great or small.--LAVATER.
Inaccurate writing is generally the expression of inaccurate thinking.--RICHARD GRANT WHITE.
To acquire a few tongues is the labor of a few years; but to be eloquent in one is the labor of a life.--ANONYMOUS.
Words and thoughts are so inseparably connected that an artist in words is necessarily an artist in thoughts.-WILSON FLAGG.
It is an invariable maxim that words which add nothing to the sense or to the clearness must diminish the force of the expression.--CAMPBELL.
Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are commonly found together. Obscurity of expression generally springs from confusion of ideas.--MACAULAY.
He who writes badly thinks badly. Confusedness in words can proceed from nothing but confusedness in the thoughts which give rise to them.--COBBETT.
A--AN. The second form of the indefinite article is used for the sake of euphony only. Herein everybody agrees, but what everybody does not agree in is, that it is euphonious to use _an_ before a word beginning with an aspirated _h_, when the accented syllable of the word is the second. For myself, so long as I continue to aspirate the _h's_ in such words as _heroic_, _harangue_, and _historical_, I shall continue to use _a_ before them; and when I adopt the Cockney mode of pronouncing such words, then I shall use _an_ before them. To my ear it is just as euphonious to say, "I will crop off from the top of his young twigs a tender one, and will plant it upon _an_ high mountain and eminent," as it is to say _an_ harangue, _an_ heroic, or _an_ historical. _An_ is well enough before the doubtful British aspiration, but before the distinct American aspiration it is wholly out of place. The reply will perhaps be, "But these _h's_ are silent; the change of accent from the first syllable to the second neutralizes their aspiration." However true this may be in England, it is not at all true in America; hence we Americans should use _a_ and not _an_ before such _h's_ until we decide to ape the Cockney mode of pronouncing them.