78 Plain English Quotes

Following is our list of plain english quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about plain speaking.

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Famous Plain English Quotes

The language of truth is simple. — Euripides

The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms. — Galen

Elegance of language must give way before simplicity in preaching sound doctrine. — Girolamo Savonarola

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words. — Hippocrates

The simpler you say it, the more eloquent it is. — August Wilson

The shorter and the plainer the better. — Beatrix Potter

The language of truth is unadorned and always simple. — Ammianus Marcellinus

So mathematical truth prefers simple words since the language of truth is itself simple. — Tycho Brahe

The niftiest turn of phrase, the most elegant flight of rhetorical fancy, isn't worth beans next to a clear thought clearly expressed. — Jeff Greenfield

The hottest new programming language is English. — Andrej Karpathy

The chief virtue that language can have is clarity. — Hippocrates

What is lofty can be said in any language. What is mean should be said in none. — Maimonides

Broken Irish is better than clever English — Irish Proverbs

Being that can be understood is language. - Hans-Georg Gadamer

Being that can be understood is language. — Hans-Georg Gadamer

Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences and paragraphs. It isn't about slickness. Simple and clear go a long way. — John P. Kotter

Plain Language Quotes

An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and how to avoid them. — Werner Heisenberg

In plain proletarian worker's language, it takes two to tango. — Fred Hampton

I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English - it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. — Mark Twain

Plain english quote Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language.
Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language.

His Majesty the King requires that the Royal Chancellery in all written documents endeavor to write in clear, plain Swedish. — Charles XII of Sweden

Love is a child that talks in broken language, yet then he speaks most plain. — John Dryden

Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Plain english quote It seems to me that once if your life before you die you ought to see a country where they don't tal
It seems to me that once if your life before you die you ought to see a country where they don't talk in English and don't even want to.

While he has not, in my hearing, spoken the English language, he makes it perfectly plain that he understands it. And he uses his ears, tail, eyebrows, various rumbles and grunts, the slant of his great cold nose or a succession of heartrending sighs to get his meaning across. — Jean Little

If you can't describe your strategy in twenty minutes, simply and in plain language, you haven't got a plan. 'But,' people may say, 'I've got a complex strategy. It can't be reduced to a page.' That's nonsense. That's not a complex strategy. It's a complex thought about the strategy. — Lawrence Bossidy

I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine. — Charles Darwin

There is no more difficult art to acquire than the art of observation, and for some men it is quite as difficult to record an observation in brief and plain language. — William Osler

Plain Speaking Quotes

We are not anti-American. We do not dislike Americans though we abhor American imperialism in all its manifestations. But then, so do many Americans. Many of them have said that even more forthrightly than we have, and many of them have suffered more than any of us for their plain speaking. — Tommy Douglas

Any sort of plain speaking is better than the nauseous sham good fellowship our democratic public men get up for shop use. — George Bernard Shaw

You know, we spend so much of our lives not saying the things we want to say. The things we should say. We speak in code, we send little messages. Origami. So now, plainly, simply. I want to say that I love you both. — Michael Scofield

Plain english quote Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.
Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.

Half the misery in the world comes of want of courage to speak and to hear the truth plainly and in a spirit of love. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

Any one who speaks in favor of bringing the Arab refugees back must also say how he expects to take the responsibility for it, if he is interested in the state of Israel. It is better that things are stated clearly and plainly: We shall not let this happen. — Golda Meir

This provision (the 4th Amendment) speaks for itself. Its plain object is to secure the perfect enjoyment of that great right of the common law, that a man's house shall be his own castle, privileged against all civil and military intrusion. — Joseph Story

But a myth, to speak plainly, to me is like a menu in a fancy French restaurant: glamorous, complicated camouflage for a fact you wouldn't otherwise swallow, like maybe lima beans. — William Peter Blatty

My plainness of speech makes people hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth. — Plato

To speak but little becomes a woman; and she is best adorned who is in plain attire. — Democritus

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood. — William Penn

Plain And Simple Quotes

The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves. — Alan Watts

I love to be clean. I wear the same things, all of my clothes pretty much look the same. I'm a plain and simple type of guy. I don't really do a lotta busy colors and things of that nature. I feel like less is more. — Kevin Gates

On a level plain, simple mounds look like hills; and the insipid flatness of our present bourgeoisie is to be measured by the altitude of its great intellects. — Karl Marx

The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. — Alan Watts

Geez, if I could get through to you, kiddo, that depression is not sobbing and crying and giving vent, it is plain and simple reduction of feeling. Reduction, see? Of all feeling. People who keep stiff upper lips find that it's damn hard to smile. — Judith Guest

Asking women to respect themselves in order to ‘earn’ the right to be treated like a human being is total horseshit. But suggesting that you have the right to treat her exactly as you please because she didn’t adhere to your archaic views of feminine propriety is misogyny, plain and simple. — Clementine Ford

Give me a mystery - just a plain and simple one - a mystery which is diffidence and silence, a slim little bare-foot mystery: give me a mystery - just one! — Yevgeny Yevtushenko

It matters not how simple the food - a chop, steak or a plain boiled or roast joint, but let it be of good quality and properly cooked, and everyone who partakes of it will enjoy it. — Alexis Soyer

Depression is not sobbing and crying and giving vent, it is plain and simple reduction of feeling. — Judith Guest

A joke is a good camouflage. Next best comes sentiment... But the best camouflage of all - in my opinion - is the plain and simple truth. Because nobody ever believes it. — Max Frisch

Being Plain Quotes

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. — H. L. Mencken

To me it seems as plain as can be that the Bible declares that all the wicked will God destroy; again, that those who, during the Millennial age when brought to a knowledge of the truth, shall prove willful sinners will be punished with everlasting destruction. — Charles Taze Russell

No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful. — Eleanor Roosevelt

people who pay greater respect to a wealthy villain than to an honest, upright man in poverty, almost deserve to be enslaved; they plainly show that wealth, however it may be acquired, is, in their esteem, to be preferred to virtue. — John Hancock

When I say artist I mean the man who is building things - creating molding the earth - whether it be the plains of the west - or the iron ore of Penn. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush - some with a shovel - some choose a pen. — Jackson Pollock

The attitude of kindness is everyday stuff like a great pair of sneakers. Not frilly. Not fancy. Just plain and comfortable. — Barbara Johnson

The wizards represent all that the true 'muggle' most fears: They are plainly outcasts and comfortable with being so. Nothing is more unnerving to the truly conventional than the unashamed misfit! — J. K. Rowling

Do not let the world's adversity either stifle your enthusiasm, nor blind your vision. The struggle towards excellence must ever be conducted on the high plains of self-confidence, a sense of purpose, and positive thought. — Ronald McNair

Plain women are always jealous of their husbands. Beautiful women never are. They are always so occupied with being jealous of other women's husbands. — Oscar Wilde

I find my dress sense tends to be a bit of a mixture between high fashion and unique vintage pieces with a little bit of street trends. For example, I might find a really nice, suede dinner jacket that I'd wear with a basic plain white shirt and some chinos and a pair of Nike trainers. — Tinie Tempah

People Writing About Plain English

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More Plain English Quotes

MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman. — Ambrose Bierce

Communists, socialists and fascists everywhere, from Mr. Obama upward, have taken to the global warming cause like a quack to colored water. Just about every word they utter on this subject is a falsehood calculated to deceive, or - in plain English - a lie. — Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

[The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English. — Ben Jonson

The English, the plain English, of the politest address of a gentleman to a lady is, I am now, dear Madam, your humble servant: Pray be so good as to let me be your Lord and Master. — Samuel Richardson

Jane Austen wrote six of the most beloved novels in the English language, we are informed at the end of Becoming Jane, and so she did. The key word is beloved. Her admirers do not analyze her books so much as they just plain love them to pieces. — Roger Ebert

Men of Science would do well to talk plain English. The most abstruse questions can very well be discussed in our own tongue ... I make a particular appeal to the botanists, who appear to delight in troublesome words. — Oliver Lodge

I am allowed to use plain English because everybody knows that I could use mathematical logic if I chose. — Bertrand Russell

A passage is not plain English - still less is it good English - if we are obliged to read it twice to find out what it means. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Plainly, children learn their language. I don't speak Swahili. And it cannot be that my language is 'an innate property of our brain.' Otherwise I would have been genetically programmed to speak (some variety of) English. — Noam Chomsky

The difference of the English and Irish character is nowhere more plainly discerned than in their respective kitchens. With the former, this apartment is probably the cleanest, and certainly the most orderly, in the house.... An Irish kitchenis usually a temple dedicated to the goddess of disorder; and, too often, joined with her, is the potent deity of dirt. — Anthony Trollope

Taxing Women is a must-have primer for any woman who wants to understand how our current tax system affects her family's economic condition. In plain English, McCaffery explains how the tax code stacks the deck against women and why it's in women's economic interest to lead the next great tax rebellion. — Patricia Schroeder

What Women's Lib might achieve if their 'consciousness raising' - or in plain English, brainwashing- campaign succeeds is a society whose members have identical roles but are perpetually at war with themselves; a society of males made neurotic by suppressed masculinity, of females made miserable by having masculine roles thrust upon them that contradict their feminine impulses. — Arianna Huffington

What does purpose mean? It means the deepest desire for our short lives to mean something. . . . To speak a language of purpose is to return to first principles and to be able to answer, in plain English, the plain questions of Why? Why should we chip in to help someone else? Why should we defer gratification? Why should we care about the long term? Why should we trust anyone who seems to be limiting our ability to do what we want? — Eric Liu

Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness is the perfect companion to Mindfulness in Plain English. Written with the thoroughness and the masterful simplicity so characteristic of his teaching, Bhante Gunaratana presents essential guidelines for turning the Buddha's teachings on the Eightfold Path into living wisdom. — Larry Rosenberg

He will find one English book and one only, where, as in the "Iliad" itself, perfect plainness of speech is allied with perfect nobleness; and that book is the Bible. — Matthew Arnold

I wish they would use English instead of Greek words. When I want to know why a leaf is green, they tell me it is coloured by "chlorophyll," which at first sounds very instructive; but if they would only say plainly that a leaf is coloured green by a thing which is called "green leaf," we should see more precisely how far we had got. — John Ruskin

It is no exaggeration to describe plain English as a fundamental tool of government. — Margaret Thatcher

Mathematical knowledge is not-as all Cambridge men are surely aware-the result of any special gift. It is merely the development of those conceptions of form and number which every human being possesses; and any person of average intellect can make himself a fair mathematician if he will only pay continuous attention; in plain English, think enough about the subject. — Charles Kingsley

A massive and brilliant accomplishment--the first English translation of the original Grimm brothers' fairy tales. The plain telling is that much more forceful for its simplicity and directness, particularly in scenes of naked self-concern and brutality. Hate, spite, love, magic, all self-evident, heartbreaking, delightful. I will return to this book over and over, no doubt about it. — Donna Jo Napoli

Charles Williams has said of the Lord's Prayer, "No word in English carries a greater possibility of terror than the little word 'as' in that clause." What makes the 'as' so terrifying? The fact that Jesus plainly links our forgiven-ness by the Father with our forgiving-ness of fellow human beings. Jesus' next remark could not be more explicit: 'If you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.' — Philip Yancey

Yes, that man acted ugly," she told us in plain English. "But throwing more ugliness back at him ain't the answer. — Lauren Myracle

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