The Book, Like The Bicycle, Is A

The World Has Long Observed That Small Acts Of Immorality, If Repeated, Will Destroy Character. It Is Equally Manifest, Though Never Said, That Uttering Nonsense And Half-truth Without Cease Ends By Destroying Intellect

Democracy, To Maintain Itself, Must Repeatedly Conquer Every Cell And Corner Of The Nation. How Many Of Our Public Institutions And Private Businesses, Our Schools, Hospitals, And Domestic Hearths Are In Reality Little Fascist States Where Freedom Of Speech Is More Rigorously Excluded Than Vermin?

Since It Is Seldom Clear Whether Intellectual Activity Denotes A Superior Mode Of Being Or A Vital Deficiency, Opinion Swings Between Considering Intellect A Privilege And Seeing It As A Handicap

The Eager Or Dutiful Persons Who Subject Themselves To These Tidal Waves Of The Classics And The Moderns Find Everything Wonderful In An Absent-minded Way. The Wonder Washes Over Them Rather Than Into Them, And One Of Its Effects Is To Make Anything Shocking Or Odd Suddenly Interesting Enough To Gain A Month's Celebrity. And So Another By-product Of Our Come-one, Come-all Policy Is The Tendency To Reward Cleverness, Not Art, And To Put One More Hurdle In The Path Of The Truly Original Artist.

One Great Aim Of Revision Is To Cut Out. In The Exuberance Of Composition It Is Natural To Throw In - As One Does In Speaking - A Number Of Small Words That Add Nothing To Meaning But Keep Up The Flow And Rhythm Of Thought. In Writing, Not Only Does This Surplusage Not Add To Meaning, It Subtracts From It. Read And Revise, Reread And Revise, Keeping Reading And Revising Until Your Text Seems Adequate To Your Thought.