The perfect book or speech obeys in every respect the pure and merciless laws of what has been called logographic necessity.
The perfect speech contains nothing slipshod; it in there are no loose threads; it contains no word that has been picked at random; it is not marred by errors due to faulty memory or to any other kind of carelessness; strong passions and a powerful and fertile imagination are guided with ease by a reason which knows how to use the unexpected gift, which knows how to persuade and which knows how to forbid; it allows of no adornment which is not imposed by the gravity and aloofness of the subject matter; the perfect writer rejects with disdain and with some impatience the demand of vulgar rhetoric that expressions must be varied since change is pleasant.
Quotation: Thoughts on Machiavelli by Leo Strauss. Free Press,1958.
