pithiness — terseness and economy in writing and speaking achieved by expressing a great deal in just a few words

“The pretended rights of these theorists [of revolution] are all extremes; and, in proportion as they are metaphysically true, they are morally and politically false.”

— Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

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This is pithiness by definition. It is a great example of how a great writer and thinker, a master of expository prose, can have the reader stop in his or her tracks, and think, say to oneself: so true — I never saw this before. And of how a single statement can focus and reorient one’s thinking; and enable one to not only see things more clearly than heretofore, but anew in a way not perceived before.

— Roger W. Smith

    July 2020