if i had more time i would've written a shorter letter

26 Oct, 2023

A sentiment earliest echoed in 1656 by Blaise Pascal (yes, that Pascal) in his 16th letter of Lettres provinciales:

"I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter."

And I absolutely adore it. It's been mirrored in some form many times over:

“If you want me to give you a two-hour presentation, I am ready today. If you want only a five-minute speech, it will take me two weeks to prepare.” – Mark Twain

"It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a whole book– what everyone else does not say in a whole book." – Friedrich Nietzsche

"The more you say, the less people remember. The fewer the words, the greater the profit" – François Fénelon

I'll stop there with the quotes to keep it...concise (sorry, I just couldn't resist).

This blog endeavors towards this very ideal, whether in writing, coding, or speech. Where there is language, there is the pursuit of economy.

There's a quote I remember reading in the preface of A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway on how the quality of one's writing can be judged by the excellence of the material eliminated. And I love that idea – that craft as we may, it is in fact the quality of what we choose to cut out that best deems the quality of our work.

The standard to measure by is not the number of lines of code, length of time talked, nor pages written – the Gettysburg Address was only 2 minutes long, 272 words ¹.