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The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.
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“The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.”

Blaise Pascal

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Source
The Provincial Letters
Date
1656
English wording
Thomas M'Crie — Translator · from French
Meaning

Meaning of “The present letter is a very long one,…”

Pascal humorously links brevity with revision time: concise expression can require more deliberate work than writing at length under pressure.

Source context

Where does it come from?

The Provincial Letters, Letter XVI, dated December 4, 1656, Project Gutenberg #73959. Pascal apologizes for the unusual length and rapid succession of his letters, saying the present one is long because he had no leisure to make it shorter. The sentence belongs to translated seventeenth-century religious polemic and is a witty observation about composition, not a measured productivity law.

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Source details

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Source details

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