Jeg vet at jeg har hatt et sitat fra Blaise Pascal på mine foiler om nettskriving – og jeg mistenker at den foilen også har funnet veien til Oves foilsett:

“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.” – Blaise Pascal, (1623-1662) Lettres provinciales.

Nå har en snill, snill mann i USA samlet alle variantene av dette sitatet på en egen side, og ikke alltid like snille men alltid like underholdende Gruber lenket til ham (og tatt ned serveren i samme slengen, ser det ut for). Nytt for meg var at evigunge Cicero var først. Her er listen:

• Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short. – Henry David Thoreau

• If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter. – Marcus T. Cicero

• You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length. – Karl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855)

• It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book. – Nietzsche

• The more you say, the less people remember. The fewer the words, the greater the profit. – Felelon

• No one who has read official documents needs to be told how easy it is to conceal the essential truth under the apparently candid and all-disclosing phrases of a voluminous and particularizing report…. – Woodrow Wilson

• “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 (som for øvrig var en gentlemanstyv av andres sitater)