Top 100 Be Brief Quotes
#1. When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's [children's] minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
#2. Quidquid praecipies, esto brevis.
(Whatever advice you give, be brief.)
Horace
#5. Honorable Senators: My sincerest thanks I offer you. Conserve the firm foundations of our institutions. Do your work with the spirit of a soldier in the public service. Be loyal to the Commonwealth and to yourselves and be brief; above all be brief.
Calvin Coolidge
#6. Our individual life is brief, and perhaps the whole life of mankind will be brief if measured in astronomical scale
Bertrand Russell
#8. There are simple rules of engagement: You need to have your voice, but it has to be very intentional - be brief and to the point, with fresh ideas. Don't restate things someone else has said. Make eye contact with the person who has the floor.
Sylvia Ann Hewlett
#9. Whatever advice you give, be brief.
Horace
#10. When you introduce a moral lesson, let it be brief.
Horace
#11. And when darkness had left its mark on you, moments of brightness could be brief and short-lived.
Andrew Warren
#12. You will find joy, frustration and sorrow in your quest. Never forget that friendship and loyalty are more precious than riches ... Happiness can be brief, but it knows no time in the land of dreams.
Brian Jacques
#13. Things have to be done fast in America , and therefore therapy has to be brief.
Gregory Bateson
#15. All pain is either severe or slight, if slight, it is easily endured; if severe, it will without doubt be brief.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
#16. Be brief, for no talk can please when too long. Being prepared is half the victory.
Miguel De Cervantes
#18. Be brief, that the mind may catch thy precepts, and the more easily retain them.
Horace
#19. I strive to be brief, and become obscure.
Horace
#20. Be brief on the logic and reason portion of your presentation. There are probably about a thousand facts about an automobile, but you don't need them all to make a decision. About a half dozen will do.
Jim Rohn
#21. My liege, and madam, to expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night night, and time is time, Were nothing but to waste night, day and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.
William Shakespeare
#22. As we retain but a faint remembrance of our felicity, it is but fair that the smartest stroke of sorrow should, if bitter, at least be brief.
Benjamin Disraeli
#24. Like all sweet dreams, it will be brief, but brevity makes sweetness, doesn't it?
Stephen King
#27. I strive to be brief but I become obscure.
Horace
#28. A novel is just a story that hasn't yet discovered a way to be brief.
George Saunders
#29. Be brief, be pointed, let your matter standLucid in order, solid and at hand;Spend not your words on trifles but condense;Strike with the mass of thought, not drops of sense;Press to close with vigor, once begun,And leave, (how hard the task!) leave off, when done.
Joseph Story
#30. Struggling to be brief I become obscure.
Horace
#31. In labouring to be brief, I become obscure.
Horace
#32. America's grossly unfair tax system won't lead to class war. Or, if it does, the war will be brief.
P. J. O'Rourke
#33. The poets aim is either to profit or to please, or to blend in one the delightful and the useful. Whatever the lesson you would convey, be brief, that your hearers may catch quickly what is said and faithfully retain it. Every superfluous word is spilled from the too-full memory.
Horace
#35. Memorable occasions should be brief, and so should be the expressions of appreciation.
Simon Kuznets
#38. Speech is highly elliptical. It would scarcely be endurable otherwise. Ellipsis is indispensable to the writer or speaker who wants to be brief and pithy, but it can easily cause confusion and obscurity and must be used with skill.
Bergen Evans
#39. For effective communication, use brevity. Jesus said, 'Follow me.' Now that's brief! He could be brief because of all that he was that he didn't have to say.
Jim Rohn
#40. Keep in mind that in the presence of a real itch, the scratches tend to appear more deliberate whereas scratching done to relieve psychological tension tends to be brief and light. Tension
Jeffrey Powell
#42. I do not need to establish a deep, lasting, time-consuming personal relationship with every student. What I must do is to be totally and nonselectively present to the student-to each student-as he addresses me. The time interval may be brief but the encounter is total.
Nel Noddings
#43. First of all, I wish you love, and that by loving you may also be loved.
But if it's not like that, be brief in forgetting
And after you've forgotten, don't keep anything.
Victor Hugo
#44. Whatever you want to teach, be brief.
Horace
#45. It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure.
Horace
#46. Whatever you teach, be brief; what is quickly said, the mind readily receives and faithfully retains, everything superfluous runs over as from a full vessel.
Horace
#47. There appears to be a vast amount of confusion on this point, but I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be "accepted" by white people, still less to be loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don't wish to be beaten over the head by the whites every instant of our brief passage on this planet.
James Baldwin
#49. There should be exit interviews for dating. Just a brief evaluation of the highlights and challenges of the relationship, and maybe a few questions like "So what exactly was it that motivated you to dump me?
Devan Sipher
#50. In brief, without being mindful of death, whatever Dharma practices you take up will be merely superficial.
Milarepa
#51. Your perspective is vital to your happiness. Some, blind to the bountiful opportunities around them, live lives of sadness and despair with brief moments of joy. Be alive to the abundant potential that surrounds you so that you live a life of peace and happiness with periods of challenging growth.
Richard G. Scott
#52. Stories should be natural as apples, brief as lust, long as a thought.
Leonard Michaels
#53. unscathed. As a victim, you might be taken to the point of not wanting to live anymore due to the loss of the soul mate illusion. Just know this, if you were to die, the Narcissist may have a slight feeling sorrow for a brief moment (although highly doubtful), but the Narcissist simply
Steve Craig
#54. It's terrifying the way molecular biology has become more and more jargon ridden. But I strongly believe that my book can be read by the intelligent layman. I want everyone who bought a copy of 'A Brief History of Time' to buy a copy of 'Genome'.
Matt Ridley
#55. How much past there is in a life, however brief it be.
Madame De Stael
#56. As things are now going, the peace we will make, the peace we seem to be making, will be a peace of oil, a peace of gold, a peace of shipping, a peace, in brief ... without moral purpose or human interest.
Archibald MacLeish
#57. The overall commentary on what I'm doing is saying, 'Hey look! I get to create whatever persona I want to, and it's all up to me. And the truth is, we are all - basically the universe - pretending to be humans for a brief moment of time. With a little self-induced amnesia.
RuPaul
#58. Happiness is fleeting and life is brief, but we know that, nonetheless, life can be savored and that happiness, even of the ecstatic kind, is available to us.
Christopher Hitchens
#59. The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy. Collect and learn them; they are notable measures of directions for human life; you have much in little; they save time in speaking; and upon occasion may be the fullest and safest answer.
William Penn
#60. have sufficiently urged that all suggestions as to financial innovation be regarded with extreme skepticism. Such seeming innovation is merely some variant on an old design, new only in the brief and defective memory of the financial world.
John Kenneth Galbraith
#61. At our age, surely there are better things to sustain us, to sustain a marriage, than the brief flame of passion?" ... "You are mistaken, Ernest," she said at last. "There is only the passionate spark. Without it, two people living together may be lonelier than if they lived quite alone.
Helen Simonson
#62. None of us knows how long he shall live or when his time will come. But soon, all that will be left of our brief lives is the pride our children feel when they speak our names.
Hiroyuki Sanada
#63. It is a kind of natural magic that enables these favored ones to bring out the hidden capabilities of things around them; and particularly to give a look of comfort and habitableness to any place which, for however brief a period, may happen to be their home.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#64. The Christian faith is meant to be lived moment by moment. It isn't some broad, general outline
it's a long walk with a real Person. Details count: passing thoughts, small sacrifices, a few encouraging words, little acts of kindness, brief victories over nagging sins.
Joni Eareckson Tada
#65. A few years hence and he will be beneath the sod; but those cliffs will stand, as now, facing the ocean, incessantly lashed by its waves, yet unshaken, immovable; and other eyes will gaze on them for their brief day of life, and then they, too, will close.
Henry Parry Liddon
#66. That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject.
George Santayana
#67. They'd made a pact to be friends forever, but forever could be so, so brief.
Nick Cutter
#68. Desription should be very brief and have an incidental nature.
Anton Chekhov
#69. Satisfaction, for us, is only a brief thing. The man who acquires wealth does not reach a point where he has enough. Success for us is more like acceleration than speed. Interest cannot be maintained at a constant level.
Neal Asher
#70. Theodora glared at me, but Mrs. Murphy Sallis gave me a brief smile and offered me her hand, which was as smooth and soft as old lettuce.
Lemony Snicket
#71. endured - how I endured! - for one day I knew her services would no longer be required and I would make my come-out and at least I would have a brief time when I could meet girls of my own age. But Miss Stamp was raised to the rank of companion and still had the schooling
Marion Chesney
#72. Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and fun of invention: taunt him with the licence of ink: if thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss; and as many lies as will lie in thy shee.
William Shakespeare
#73. Someday a loving Hand will be laid upon your shoulder and this brief message will be given: Come home.
Billy Graham
#74. Lifelong pain, an unwanted pregnancy, and even death may be the reward for such a brief window of pleasure. What a foolish gamble!
James C. Dobson
#75. But something cannot be made out of nothing. Dust rose in the air, caught the rays of the sun for a brief moment and sparkled, and then returned to the earth as mere dust.
David Klass
#76. Never wallow in your troubles; despair must be kept private and brief.
Werner Herzog
#77. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved
William Shakespeare
#78. We are in an age that assumes the narrowing trends of specialization to be logical, natural, and desirable. Consequently, society expects all earnestly responsible communication to be crisply brief ... In the meantime, humanity has been deprived of comprehensive understanding.
R. Buckminster Fuller
#79. Given the brief - and generally misleading - exposure most people have to mathematics at school, raising the public awareness of mathematics will always be an uphill battle.
Keith Devlin
#80. We don't get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we've chosen to do with our life.
Steve Jobs
#81. You would be dressed in fine clothes and feast royally until your brief reign ended and they cut your heart out.
Peter Thiel
#82. You've gotta believe that the split second that changed your life - the brief moment that took your leg and bruised your melon - can't be the defining moment of your life. It was just an instant, a flash. Just one second out of millions of seconds. It doesn't get to own you.
Jennifer Handford
#83. For me the motley and the bauble, yea,
Though all be vanity, as the Preacher saith,
The mirth of love be mine for one brief breath!
Frederic Lawrence Knowles
#84. For a brief second I remember everything about who and what I used to be. But most of all, I remember Harlin. And I wonder how he'll find me if I'm someone else.
Suzanne Young
#86. There is a Russian proverb,' Nepeja said. 'Beat your shuba, and it will be warmer; beat your wife and she shall be sweeter.'
There was a brief silence, while his hearers considered the analogy. 'Beat your brother and he shall be deader?' at length Danny said.
Dorothy Dunnett
#87. Giving a brief sermon, the Abbess once said, 'A hot furnace does not need to be heated. A loving heart does not need to be loved. Being loving is more important than being loved.
Gil Fronsdal
#88. If design is a problem-solving discipline, then great design must start with a thorough understanding of the problem to be solved - which is best found in a great design brief.
Peter L. Phillips
#89. Matthew had been accumulating secrets ... My life might be too brief to hear them all, never mind understand them.
Deborah Harkness
#90. It is clear that a poem may be improperly brief. Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very short poem, while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a profound or enduring, effect. There must be the steady pressing down of the stamp upon the wax.
Edgar Allan Poe
#91. Mr. Poe opened his mouth to say something, but erupted into a brief fit of coughing. "I have made arrangements," he said finally, "for you to be raised by a distant relative of yours who lives on the other side of town. His name is Count Olaf.
Lemony Snicket
#92. So that, logically, in the brief time allotted to us, we should be as kind to one another as is humanly possible and face the harsh facts of reality without fear or flinching.
Michael Swanwick
#93. Tessa rolled over, burying her face in her pillow. For so many years she had wondered what her first kiss would be like-if he would be handsome, if he would love her, if he would be kind. She had never imagined that the kiss would be so brief and wild. Or that it would taste of holy water and blood.
Cassandra Clare
#94. They don't want to hear how Octavia is different from us. They want to know how we're the same. They know what it's like to have an itch. They can imagine what it's like to be a mother. This brief encounter has changed them. Now they can identify with an octopus. They
Sy Montgomery
#95. You seem to forget that the sun must set. You knew perfectly well that I would not be with you long enough. Still, you weep and cry and ask God 'Why' as if it were some kind of surprise. Why? Because love changes everything. Love's the surprise.
Kate McGahan
#96. However brief our time in the sun, if we waste a second of it, or
complain that it is dull or barren or (like a child) boring, couldn't
this be seen as a callous insult to those unborn trillions who will
never even be offered life in the first place?
Richard Dawkins
#97. I had never considered marriage, but I had an open mind, and I was to learn after a brief try at it that most open minds should be closed for repairs.
Wilson Mizner
#98. By what warrant, therefore, is such an attack to be termed an extended epilepsy rather than a quite brief and severe, let us say, a condensed migraine?
Oliver Sacks
#99. When we can be centered in ourselves, even for brief periods of time in the face of the pull of the outer world, not having to look elsewhere for something to fill us up or make us happy, we can be at home wherever we find ourselves, at peace with things as they are, moment by moment.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
#100. They all deserve to die.
Even you, Mrs. Lovett
Even I.
Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief
For the rest of us death would be relief.
Stephen Sondheim
