Joseph Story, an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court in the first half of the nineteenth century, may be somewhat known to American lawyers, completely unknown to non-American lawyers, and totally irrelevant to everyone else. And yet, his pithy advice on crafting effective arguments, such as “strike but a few blows, but strike them to the heart,” is useful not just in general but in particular for debunking lies or as a persuasive refutation approach for countering such deceptive tactics as dilution or flooding the zone.
This is an excerpt from his poem titled “Advice to a Young Lawyer” (it is slightly edited, leaving out a more poetic passage and cutting out some trifles):
Be brief, be pointed; let your matter stand
Lucid in order, solid, and at hand;
Spend not your words on trifles, but condense;
Strike with the mass of thoughts, not drops of sense;Press to the close with vigor once begun,
And leave, (how hard the task!) leave off when done;
He who would win his cause, with power must frame
Points of support, and look with steady aim:
Attack the weak, defend the strong with art,Strike but few blows, but strike them to the heart;
All scatter’d fires but end in smoke and noise,
The scorn of men, the idle play of boys.Keep, then, this first great precept ever near,
Short be your speech, your matter strong and clear,
Earnest your manner, warm and rich your style,
Severe in taste, yet full of grace the while;So may you reach the loftiest heights of fame,
And leave, when life is past, a deathless name.