Pithy Prose: the Wit & Wisdom of People Named 'h'

by Philip Yaffe

Part 7 of an occasional series

I am a collector of quotations. I have been ever since I learned how to write, I mean professionally, not in primary school.

I am particularly fond of what I like to call "pithy prose". These short quotations can cover an unlimited variety of subjects: love, religion, politics, human nature, etc. What unites them is their ability to say more in one or two sentences than could be expressed in a thousand-word treatise. It's like being able to pour a liter of liquid into a half-liter bottle.

They are superb examples of Mark Twain's famous dictum, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

In principle, all writers and public speakers are capable of producing pithy prose, but clearly some are better at it than others.

Any collection of pithy prose must necessarily be biased in terms of what it includes and excludes. I make no apologies for my selections, only for the hundreds of other meritorious quotations I had to leave out.

No one will agree with all these quotations; this was not their intention. You may even find some of them repugnant or outrageous. This was their intention.

We seldom learn anything of value from what we already agree with. Only those ideas that grate on our nerves can open our minds. As with oysters, irritation can produce pearls. So if anything you are about to read annoys or shocks you, try to think clearly and dispassionately about what it is saying. You will either be confirmed in your current belief or shaken into re-examining it.

Either way, you win!

This article is part of an occasional series. In each article, I will be offering more amusing, educating, and exasperating quotations to your judgment. But just to be certain that we agree on what we are talking about, here it is in a nutshell.

Pithy Prose: A quotation where at first you may not be quite certain what it means. But when you become certain, you become equally certain that it couldn't have been said better any other way. In short, big ideas in small packages.

If you have a better definition of pithy prose, please contact me. I would love to hear it.

Who Are These People Named "H"?

Some people, such as Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, are pithy prose factories. During their careers they produced hundreds of quotations well worth remembering. Others produced only a handful, but these too are well worth preserving.

This article is dedicated to the wit & wisdom of people with surnames beginning with the letter "H". If you don't recognize some of these people, it doesn't matter. The source of timeless wit and wisdom is not important, only what it said.

If you really want to know who some of these people are, look it up on the Web. That's why it was invented.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.

Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he chooses to be so or not.

Life is made up of marble and mud.

Moonlight is sculpture.

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.

You can get assent to almost any proposition so long as you are not going to do anything about it.

Rutherford B. Hayes

One of the tests of the civilization of people is the treatment of its criminals.

Unjust attacks on public men do them more good than unmerited praise.

Virtue is defined to be mediocrity, of which either extreme is vice.

Ben Hecht

A man nearly always loves for other reasons than he thinks. A lover is apt to be as full of secrets from himself as is the object of his love from him.

In moderating, not satisfying desires, lies peace.

Prejudice is a raft onto which the shipwrecked mind clambers and paddles to safety.

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Amid the pressure of great events, a general principle gives no help.

Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights.

Mere goodness can achieve little against the power of nature.

The learner always begins by finding fault, but the scholar sees the positive merit in everything.

Heinrich Heine

Atheism is the last word of theism.

He only profits from praise who values criticism.

I fell asleep reading a dull book and dreamed I kept on reading, so I awoke from sheer boredom.

Matrimony; the high sea for which no compass has yet been invented.

Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all.

The men of action are, after all, only the unconscious instruments of the men of thought.

There are more fools in the world than there are people.

Robert A. Heinlein

A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.

Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

I never learned from a man who agreed with me.

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.

Never insult anyone by accident.

No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.

The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship.

Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.

Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.

Lillian Hellman

Belief is a moral act for which the believer is to be held responsible.


Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.

God forgives those who invent what they need.

I like people who refuse to speak until they are ready to speak.

Lonely people, in talking to each other, can make each other lonelier.

Nothing you write, if you hope to be good, will ever come out as you first hoped.


People change and forget to tell each other.

Ernest Hemingway

All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

Never confuse movement with action.

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

Napoleon Hill

A goal is a dream with a deadline.

If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.

More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has been taken from the earth.

Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.

Nature cannot be tricked or cheated. She will give up to you the object of your struggles only after you have paid her price.

Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel.

The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.

There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.

Julia Ward Howe

I am confirmed in my division of human energies. Ambitious people climb, but faithful people build.

I never could be good when I was not happy.

Theology in general seems to me a substitution of human ingenuity for divine wisdom.

Beneath all differences of doctrine or discipline there exists a fundamental agreement as to the simple, absolute essentials in religion.

William Dean Howells

Some people can stay longer in an hour than others can in a week.

The book which you read from a sense of duty, or because for any reason you must, does not commonly make friends with you.

The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested.

Wisdom and goodness are twin-born, one heart must hold both sisters, never seen apart.

Previously in this Series

Part 1: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Mark Twain

Part 2: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Oscar Wilde

Part 3: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of People Named "W"

Part 4: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Anatole France

Part 5: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Ambrose Bierce

Part 6: Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Friedrich Nietzsche

Philip Yaffe is a former reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal and a marketing communication consultant. He currently teaches a course in good writing and good speaking in Brussels, Belgium. His recently published book In the “I” of the Storm: the Simple Secrets of Writing & Speaking (Almost) like a Professional is available from Story Publishers in Ghent, Belgium (storypublishers.be) and Amazon (amazon.com).

For further information, contact:

Philip Yaffe
Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +32 (0)2 660 0405
phil.yaffe@yahoo.com, phil.yaffe@gmail.com