Style.—The style is the man.—Buffon.
As it is a great point of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it in and contract it is of no less praise when the argument doth ask it.—Ben Jonson.
Not poetry, but prose run mad.—Pope.
There is a certain majesty in plainness; as the proclamation of a prince never frisks it in tropes or fine conceits, in numerous and well-turned periods, but commands in sober natural expressions.—South.
In the present day our literary masonry is well done, but our architecture is poor.—Joubert.
Perhaps that is nearly the perfection of good writing which is original, but whose truth alone prevents the reader from suspecting that it is so; and which effects that for knowledge which the lense effects for the sunbeam, when it condenses its brightness in order to increase its force.—Colton.
A temperate style is alone classical.—Joubert.
Obscurity and affectation are the two great faults of style. Obscurity of expression generally springs from confusion of ideas; and the same wish to dazzle, at any cost, which produces affectation in the manner of a writer, is likely to produce sophistry in his reasoning.—Macaulay.
Style is the gossamer on which the seeds of truth float through the world.—Bancroft.
The lively phraseology of Montesquieu was the result of long meditation. His words, as light as wings, bear on them grave reflections.—Joubert.