Be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.

Be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.

The obvious is better than obvious avoidance of it.

Quotation... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he can give it himself, or because they are beautiful or witty, or because he expects them to touch a cord of association in his reader, or because he wishes to show that he is learned and well read. Quotations due to the last motive are invariably ill-advised; the discerning reader detects it and is contemptuous; the undiscerning is perhaps impressed, but even then is at the same time repelled, pretentious quotations being the surest road to tedium.

We tell our thoughts, like our children, to put on their hats and coats before they go out.

Those who run to long words are mainly the unskillful and tasteless; they confuse pomposity with dignity, flaccidity with ease, and bulk with force.

After all, it is an ancient and valuable right of the English people to turn their nouns into verbs when they are so minded.