Precepts are the rules by which we ought to square our lives. When they are contracted into sentences, they strike the affections; whereas admonition is only blowing of the coal.

A short sentence reaches people where a lecture does not. Compression is what gives an idea force: once something is small enough to carry around, it arrives at the moment it is needed instead of sitting in a notebook. Explanation, by contrast, gets agreed with and then forgotten, because agreement is cheap and nothing about it stays with you. Length is often what stops a good point from working.

When you have something important to say, cut it to one sentence and stop. Let the silence do the rest. And for the ideas you want to keep, reduce each to a line you could say to yourself while walking.