In Pascal's Own Words
“I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.”
— Pascal, Provincial Letters, Letter 16
The Provincial Letters were a series of letters Pascal published under a pen name in the 1650s, defending a fellow theologian and criticizing the moral reasoning of his opponents. In this line he apologizes for a long letter and points out that making writing short takes more effort than making it long. It still fits any modern message that rambles because its sender had no time to trim.
Who Was Pascal?
Blaise Pascal was born in Clermont, France, in 1623 and was a gifted mathematician from youth. As a teenager he built a mechanical calculator to help with his father's tax work. He studied fluids and air pressure, and his name is attached to a famous triangle of numbers. In the 1650s he published the Provincial Letters, admired for their wit and clarity. He also left behind notes on faith and human nature, collected after his death in 1662 as the Pensées. Readers still love his precise, startlingly modern observations.
Try This Today
Before you send your next long message, text, or voicemail, write the one sentence the recipient truly needs, then put it first. Read it back and cut one extra sentence. If you are on the receiving end of a long message, reply to the single useful part with a short question. Notice how much easier the next exchange becomes.
Your Turn
Which message of yours would improve most if you spent five more minutes cutting it, and who would be grateful for that effort?
Letters are composites written by the Lifted Words editors. Replies are written in the spirit of each thinker; the quote in the blue box is their own.