BlaisePascal once wrote in a letter, "The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter."
Or in the original,
"Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte."
Similar quotes have been attributed to
MarkTwain,
MrVoltaire,
JohnLocke, Cicero,
HenryDavidThoreau,
MartinLutherKing, and many others, but listing all instances of the thing would violate the spirit of the thing itself.
Relates to the difference between
DoTheEasiestThingThatCouldPossiblyWork and
DoTheSimplestThingThatCouldPossiblyWork
See also,
VerbalDiarrhea,
ShortAndToThePoint,
ShortBooks,
WabiSabi,
ShortCut,
OmitNeedlessWords,
KillYourDarlings.