I Would Have Written A Shorter Letter

If i had more time i would have written a shorter letter.

If i had more time i would have written a shorter letter marcus tullius cicero philosopher and statesman. Origin the earliest recorded use of the quote if i had more time i would have written a shorter letter comes from french mathematician and philosopher blaise pascal s work lettres provinciales in 1657. If i had more time i would have written a shorter letter blaise pascal. I was planning to end a letter with the following remark.

I was planning to end a letter with the following remark. But the number of different people credited with this comment is so numerous that an explanatory appendix would have been required and the letter was already too long. 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. The quote is familiar and we all know it but it has been attributed at various times to a disparate number of famous individuals across the globe.

If i had more time i would have written a shorter letter is an infamously misattributed quote that highlights the importance of brevity and editing in writing.