Just about everything in this world is easier said than done, with the exception of “systematically assisting Sisyphus’s stealthy, Syst-susceptible sister,” which is easier done than said.
Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Vile Village (2001)
Quotations about:
easiness
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Approach the easy as though it were difficult, and the difficult as though it were easy; the first, lest overconfidence make you careless, and the second, lest faint-heartedness make you afraid.
[Lo fácil se ha de emprender como dificultoso, y lo dificultoso como fácil. Allí porque la confianza no descuide, aquí porque la desconfianza no desmaye.]
Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish Jesuit priest, writer, philosopher
The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], § 204 (1647) [tr. Fischer (1937)]
(Source)
(Source (Spanish)). Alternate translations:What is easie ought to be set about, as if it were difficult; and what is difficult as if it were easie. The one for fear of slackening through too much confidence; and the other for fear of losing courage through too much apprehensiveness.
[Flesher ed. (1685)]Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy. In the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed.
[tr. Jacobs (1892)]Undertake the easy as though it were difficult, and the difficult as though it were easy, so as not to grow overconfident or discouraged.
[tr. Maurer (1992)]
Easy reading is damn hard writing.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American writer
(Attributed)
Also attributed to others, including Ernest Hemingway. The reference to Hawthorne can be dated back to Maya Angelou in "The Art of Fiction," Paris Review, #116, Interview with George Plimpton (1990):Nathaniel Hawthorne says, "Easy reading means damn hard writing."Per Wikiquote, Angelou put it differently previously, in Conversations With Maya Angelou (1989) [ed. Jeffrey M. Elliot]:I think it's Alexander Pope who says, "Easy writing is damn hard reading," and vice versa, easy reading is damn hard writing.
Which first clause may refer in turn not to Pope but Richard Brinsley, Clio's Protest, or the Picture Varnished (1771, pub. 1819):You write with ease, to show your breeding, But easy writing's curst hard reading.
