Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
William Strunk, Jr in Elements of Style (1919)
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
quote by William Strunk, Jr.
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
quote by William Strunk, Jr.
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Necessary Light
You a fiend a fallen being
Once basked the presence
Of heavenly glow
And yet you made
The whole world blow
That oh dear! Was an unnecessary evil
You opposed the purpose of mankind's call
And rejoiced and preluded mankinds's fall
That dear being! Was an unnecessary evil
You gave the universe sin
And ever since all the pain came in
That oh fiend! Was an unnecessary evil
I Know the night you cast
Will fade away at last
Cause one had come to make us bright
In him there beacons, everlasting light
That gave the will to fight all ills
An unnecessary evil alas eclipsed
By a necessary light.
Copyright © 2012
poem by Godfrey Morris
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Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. If you have them, you have to take care of them! There is great freedom in simplicity of living. It is those who have enough but not too much who are the happiest.
quote by Peace Pilgrim
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Don't store unnecessary data, keep an eye on what's happening, and don't take unnecessary risks.
quote by Chris Bell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Enjoy The Silence
Words like violence
Break the silence
Come crashing in
Into my little world
Painful to me
Pierce right through me
Can't you understand
Oh my little girl
All i ever wanted
All i ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm
Vows are spoken
To be broken
Feelings are intense
Words are trivial
Pleasure remain
So does the pain
Words are meaningless
And forgettable
All i ever wanted
All i ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm
song performed by by H.I.M.
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Enjoy The Silence
Words like violence
Break the silence
Come crashing in
Into my little world
Painful to me
Pierce right through me
Cant you understand
Oh my little girl
All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm
Vows are spoken
To be broken
Feelings are intense
Words are trivial
Pleasure remain
So does the pain
Words are meaningless
And forgettable
All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm
song performed by by H.i.m. (his Infernal Majesty)
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Just One Day...Away
Just one day...
Away.
For you and I to explore,
A new landscape.
With a different approach.
To make a difference made.
And seeing ourselves,
As participating in creating...
Something good we believe in.
Something good we wish to save.
In this season upon us,
That holds so much promise.
In this season lived of expressed forgiveness,
We do our best to impress...
With the giving of wishes for complete happiness,
For all,
Just one day this Fall.
To reminsce as one remembered as the one loved best.
Just one day...
Away.
From the others that seemed to have accumulated,
Unnecessary headaches.
To endure unnecessary stress.
Just one day...
Away.
To proclaim that day,
So unlike the rest.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Poet Speaks
I'm not committed
to please you by my rounded
lullabic words
rather
I'm committed
to erect you by my
thoughts
otherwise
poetry industry
such a flop project
people invest their
unnecessary time and intelligence
better you produce
smooth condom
to supply much pleasure
to seduce time long
I'm committed
to erect you
placing a mirror in front
you can experience
your animality and divinity
your useless unnecessary existence
and your inevitable pre-designed importance
to expand yourself as infinite oneness
Pranab k c
05/09/2012
poem by Pranab K. Chakraborty
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One of the things I particularly enjoyed doing was taking raw sound from locations during the film, like the candy machine, and writing pieces of music to go with them, which is totally unnecessary within the context of the film, because they have their own logic.
quote by Fred Frith
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Life forces enough final decisions on us. We should have the sense to avoid as many of the unnecessary ones as we can.
quote by John Irving
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
quote by Bertrand Russell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Unnecessary
Unnecessary,
Auntie said,
when you asked
about taking the mutt
for a walk;
he can take himself
for a walk,
in fact,
she continued
straining the cabbage,
the green water
pushing through
the stainless steel colander,
he runs,
he loves to run
all over the fields.
You knew he did,
you used to run with him,
and being that kind of mutt
he’d let you run beside him,
you being a small boy,
you being the one
who shared his bacon rinds,
you the one who filled
his water bowl
when Auntie forgot.
Sit down now,
Auntie said,
dinner is about
to be served,
and I hope
you have washed
your hands,
and she’d dish you
a large serving
of cabbage
with your meal
and she didn’t see
how that was so
unnecessary.
poem by Terry Collett
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My Heart Aches
my heart aches
i have not given much
i have not achieved much
i have kept so much dusts so much wastes so many unnecessary
things, thoughts, ill-feelings, indifference, hate, dismay, disappointments
inside my mind inside my heart
and so overcrowded
this heart is choked
this heart is heavy
this heart is full
this heart must unload, reject, delete, free what is unnecessary
unload, this heart must unload now
emptied it is freed
it breathes
it is lightened
it is light
it is free
it is a bird now flying so lightly in the sky in the wind in the heavens...
a light heart an empty heart
it must be.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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I'm afraid that reason will triumph and that the world will become a place where anyone who doesn't fit that will become unnecessary.
quote by David Byrne
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Bad Writing
the sentence & the paragraph had agreed upon meeting at dawn
out in the middle of the page
as the reflection off the fine silver pen being lifted by the human hand in the sky
shone off the bright white recycled paper
there stood one strong paragraph,
which
was armed with clever words, quirky verbs & quiet frankly,
a whole slew of other sentences
who may or may not be brought into the fray
with this
vigilante,
who stood a good distance away from the paragraph
with its shadow blotting out part of the page-
the sentence was tight
knit
&
written in a language that the paragraph had never heard of
before-
the paragraph tilted it’s font a bit, to stave off the human shifting the paper,
causing a bit of a breeze across the soft plane,
but the sentence hadn’t come here today
to waste its time flashing its
fashion sense, and in
standard
new times roman,
it spoke out in italics
“we gonna do this or not? ”
& the paragraph,
without a moment’s hesitation,
nodded, saying, in some bold n’ fancy variation of
book antiqua,
“i been ready since i saw the punctuation at the end of your
babbling jumble of foreign words”-
at that point,
the title of the page & the
header
walked in tandem to the place in between both the paragraph
and the sentence-
now equidistant apart from both,
they talked of what had brought both these forms of writing
to the page
this brisk & early morning in
june-
to make a story short,
the foreign language sentence & the
english (current language of commerce) paragraph
had come to this duel over a
beautiful
metaphor-
and while both the title & the header could understand,
having fallen for beautiful metaphors once or twice in their own
multiple drafts, themselves,
it was still a sad sight to see two
strong forms of writing,
battling over one
metaphor,
when there were so many
phrases in the
sea of literature-
the title & the header opened up the utterance
& from that utterance, they pulled two perfect
pistols full of wit
(the weapon of choice for both the paragraph & the sentence) ,
and after handing both of the forms of writing their
prospective pistol,
they stood back and off to the side of the page,
frightened of what was to happen next-
back to back,
the paragraph & the sentence marched away from each other
space by space by space,
to the traditional margins,
and when they both reached them
they turned round quick,
firing their wit at will-
the paragraph,
hefty & edited well,
was able to fire its wit faster,
as it had already gone through so many drafts, and had
honed its skill
whereby each word within it, had its own place
(it was a “ripped” paragraph, if you can picture it-lean & not very wordy at all) ,
however,
though the sentence wasn’t as well formed as the paragraph,
it was sleek & stealthy-
its words rolled off a human’s tongue when they read it
aloud,
and in this, the sentence was able to
wiggle itself around,
missing the mass spray of wit that had been fired by the
paragraph’s pistol-
as in every fight,
there is a winner & a loser,
this one was no different,
and the hefty, well edited paragraph,
had too much to move
and too little time to do so,
when the sentence wielded its wit towards it-
the sentence, relentlessly, kept firing,
not satisfied & not feeling safe,
until the paragraph, with all of its fellow sentences within,
crumbled to the page,
now,
a mere pile of
sentence fragments & misplaced
words & punctuation.
the sentence,
victorious,
nodded to the title & the header, who nodded back,
and walked out of the lamplight & into the shadow
to embrace the sweet warmth of its
beautiful metaphor
which had been watching the wit-fight
behind the margin.
poem by Andrew Delapruch
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Can We Give An Inch or Two
Can we give it more time,
To find...
It can be with us all worked out.
Can we give it more time,
To find...
It can be with us all worked out.
Can we give it more time,
To find...
It can be with us all worked out.
Can we...
Give an inch or two to make it stop.
All unnecessary stuff on our blocks.
Can we...
Make that difference and make it stick.
Can we...
Show more confidence and tolerance.
Can we...
Get off the fence and nurture common sense.
Can we...
Open the door at our expense.
If we don't...
It's never gonna git don'.
'Cause we wanna be bees but we ain't making honey!
Can we give it more time,
To find...
It can be with us all worked out.
Can we...
Make that difference and make it stick.
Can we...
Show more confidence and tolerance.
Can we...
Get off the fence and nurture common sense.
Can we...
Open the door at our expense.
If we don't...
It's never gonna git don'.
'Cause we wanna be bees but we ain't making honey!
And the money from the honey made by bees...
Is giving us the squeeze.
Can we...
Give an inch or two to make it stop.
Can we...
Stop unnecessary stuff on our blocks.
Can we...
Each other motivate without hate.
Can we...
Appreciate each other without debate.
Can we..
Arrive too early and not be late...
To witness the release,
From faking.
Can we...
Give an inch or two to make it stop,
From faking.
Can we...
Stop unnecessary stuff on our blocks,
From faking.
Can we...
Give an inch or two to make it stop.
Can we...
Stop unnecessary stuff on our blocks.
Can we...
Each other motivate without hate.
And faking.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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When I Will Meet You Again
when i meet you again
i will not use words
i will not utter your name
i will look at you and go closer
my lips closer to your lips
my hands caressing your hands your hair your body
i will have no use of words
they will be unnecessary and time so short shall have no regrets
for i shall have your kiss your sweet caress
i have no use of words for i shall make love with you the whole night long.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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I believe firmly in reconciliation among Vietnamese to avoid unnecessary shedding of the blood of Vietnamese.
quote by Duong Van Minh
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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