A blessing undisguised

I'm reading the latest edition of Strunk and White.  Here are a few nice lines:

* It is an old observation that the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric.  When they do so, however, the reader will usually find in the sentence some compensating merit, attained at the cost of the violation.  Unless he is certain of doing as well, he will probably do best to follow the rules.  After he has learned, by their guidance, to write plain English adequate for everyday uses, let him look, for the secrets of style, to the study of the masters of literature.

* All through The Elements of Style one finds evidences of the author's deep sympathy for the reader.  Will felt that the reader was in serious trouble most of the time, a man floundering in a swamp, and that it was the duty of anyone attempting to write English to drain this swamp quickly and get his man up on dry ground, or at least throw him a rope.

* Understanding is that penetrating quality of knowledge that grows from theory, practice, conviction, assertion, error, and humiliation.

* Note, in the examples above, that when a sentence is made stronger, it usually becomes shorter. Thus, brevity is a by-product of vigor.


* Transpire.  Not to be used in the sense of "happen," "come to pass."  Many writers so use it (usually when groping toward imagined elegance), ...  


* Avoid the use of qualifiers.  Rather, very, little, pretty---these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words.