Editing Einstein’s Grammar

“Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.”
That quote is attributed to Einstein by Barbara Loe Fisher in Mercola, Nov. 7, 2017

Whether or not Albert said that, I’d like to edit it a bit for grammar and style.
“Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.”

”Never” is too extreme. We all do things against our conscience at times. Where do all of these bad consciences come from?

”anything” is extremely vague. Anything? That’s the opposite of everything and includes walking on the grass, jaywalking and thinking unauthorized thoughts.

”even if” is the weak link in this chain of reasoning. It weakens the nature of the state. We get the impression that the state makes demands on our conscience exceptionally. In contrast to that perspective, compare the following edited edition with the original:

Don’t go against conscience because the state demands it.
Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

Not only is the edited quote sharper and more explicit, it is 18% shorter.

9 words instead of 11. Two words less. 18%. Not much? Not much! Suppose 18% of all text masses contained sentences that could be improved in clarity and save the reader 18% less time. (There’s a lot more than 18%) That’s 18 times 18 = 324%. Multiply this by millions of readers and witness the serious number of hours saved by small improvements in grammar and style.

BTW, if  we allow the two words to represent ink and carbon powder instead of time and multiply this by the printers throughout the world we should see a skyscraper of printer cartridges before us. Created by small improvements in grammar and style.

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”If you don’t think geniuses make mistakes
and do stupid things,
you are certainly no genius.”
Dartwill Aquila

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The West Bank is now the Judea-Samaria area.