Too much consulting confounds.
Truth needs not many words, but a false tale a large preamble.
Truths too fine-spun are subtle fooleries.
Upbraiding turns a benefit into an injury.
Use your wit as a buckler, not as a sword.
What God made, he never mars.
When honor grew mercenary, money grew honorable.
Where vice is, vengeance follows.
Synonyms.—A synonym is a word that means the same or nearly the same thing as some other word. Our language, from its composite nature, is peculiarly rich in synonyms. In hundreds of cases English has absorbed both the Saxon and the French or Latin word for a given idea. Nearly always, in such cases, one of the words has acquired a distinctly different shade of meaning from the other. Indeed, one of the words is sure to acquire a slightly different value, whether from its associations or its sound. While it may roughly be said that there are words which mean the same thing, yet for the really careful writer there are no synonyms.
Synonyms for Adjectives of Praise.—In another sense there are many people who seem to have no synonyms. You have doubtless known persons who lacked all means of differentiating praise,—persons who applied the same adjective to everything, from a pin to the solar system. There are the people who find everything either nice or not nice; the people who eat elegant soups and sigh at elegant sunsets; the people who have jolly times, jolly canes, jolly excuses. To the nice group, the elegant group, and the jolly group, may be added the lovely group, and many others.