Apparently, in ancent times, people mostly read aloud, and the practice of silent reading was seen as extravagant and even sinister by many.

Nowadays, on the other hand, the opposite is true, and therefore, as Landor indicates, the writer must "converse" with the reader in silence.

And ironically these conversations are often the most eloquent we'll ever have.



Alberico Collina



"What is reading but silent conversation?" Walter Savage Landor

What are your friends to you?

Why do they reflect the way you are?

Why do you reflect the way they are?

Cicero answers all these questions about friendship and more in a single definition.

And because he's Cicero, he manages it in just six words.




Alberico Collina



"A friend is...a second self." Cicero

If anyone can define eloquence it has to be de la Rochefoucauld. In the same way as artists know when their work is complete, the eloquent employ the words they need. And only those.




Alberico Collina




“True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, and stopping.” François de la Rochefoucauld

When we hear wit, we recognise it.

Wit is sharp.

It stings but doesn't burn.

It's clever but not arrogant.

And there are hundreds of definitions of wit.

But only Aristotle's manages to be eloquent in just four words.


Alberico Collina



"Wit is educated insolence." Aristotle

The image this sentence evokes always gives me a kind of vertigo. And it brings home the notion that there are few things in this world more powerful than words...if someone is willing to read them.


Alberico Collina


"A small drop of ink makes thousands, perhaps millions... think." Lord Byron, Don Juan

The father of the detective novel fittingly employs an alcohol analogy to say it all, when he gives his insiight into how a story comes about. And it could just as easily have been spoken by one of his characters, while leaning over a bar, with a drink in one hand, tired from a night's sleuthing.


Alberico Collina



"A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled." Raymond Chandler

Elegance is not fashion, it's not a trend, it's not even a set of laws to which one must adhere. Elegance is something that is timeless and uncluttered. And though Franklin's definition may not be exhaustive, it gets close to the true meaning of fashion.


Alberico Collina



"Simplicity, carried to an extreme, becomes elegance." Jon Franklin

What is a story? Writers and readers have been trying to answer this question for millenia. Beyond the setting, beyond the character or characters, and beyond the resolution that make up the story, there is the story's core - conflict, as Butler's definition elegantly reminds us.


Alberico Collina


"Story is a yearning meeting an obstacle." Robert Olen Butler

Klimt witnessed the birth of psychoanalysis from very close quarters, and this experince probably influenced the brief but vivid description of Art he made.



Alberico Collina


"Art is a line around your thoughts." Gustav Klimt