WIST Quotations

Levin, Bernard -- Essay (1989-03-23), “Do You Seriously Want to Be Swindled?” The Times, London

Dave — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 15:50:21 +0000

You don’t need to be a genius or a sage to realise — realise, not know, let alone work out — that there is no easy path to great wealth (or to anything useful) because if there were, the poor would be in a very small minority, and everybody else would be stinking rich.

Bernard Levin (1928-2004) British journalist, critic, broadcaster, satirist
Essay (1989-03-23), “Do You Seriously Want to Be Swindled?” The Times, London
(Source)

Collected in Now Read On (1980).

Snicket, Lemony -- The Vile Village (2001)

Dave — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 16:25:09 +0000

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)

Gracián, Baltasar -- The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], § 204 (1647) [tr. Fischer (1937)]

Dave — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 12:25:19 +0000

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)]

Hawthorne, Nathaniel -- (Attributed)

Dave — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 12:43:44 +0000

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.