There is magic in threes.  There is power in threes.  There is impact in threes.

And today, I teach you the simplicity of three. Patience and compassion are left for another teacher, another time, another day.

Never forget that.  People remember “threes”; but will they recall, recount, or react to a litany  of 17 items or sentences of dangling participles or  paragraphs of rambling text?

Three items resonate.  Three items motivate.  Three items detonate.

This simple rule together with a few others I will address in further posts can move your listener to listen, to hear and most important to act.

It’s one of the easiest rhetorical devices to employ, but use it wisely and not exhaustively and mind-numblingly as I have done here.  Remember exhausting the listener or reader and putting them asleep is not rhetorical device that I recommend.

A list of three items will make your point be understood and remembered.  [Sometimes, you run out of a third, but change it up to make the non-three hit hard.]

We hear this rule of three all the time, but how often do you think in “threes” besides beginning, middle and end? Every story has these three elements, but do not forget that the rule of three can be used as building blocks within your story line or your case theme.

Pope Francis credits his Jesuit training for teaching him the rule of three.  I credit the Army for teaching me to tell what I am going to say, say it, then say what I had said, but hopefully with less subtlety than a drill sergeant.

Here’s a share for Wikipedia to help make the point:

The rule of three can refer to a collection of three words, phrases, sentences, lines, paragraphs/stanzas, chapters/sections of writing and even whole books.[3][5] The three elements together are known as a triad.[6] The technique may be used not just in prose but poetry, oral storytelling, films and advertising. In photography, the rule of thirds produces a similar effect by dividing an image into three vertically and horizontally.[7]

A tricolon is a more specific use of the rule of three where three words or phrases are equal in length and grammatical form.[8]

A hendiatris is a figure of speech where three successive words are used to express a single central idea.[6] As a slogan or motto, this is known as a tripartite motto.[9]

And they are remembered:

  • “The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”  – Witness oath.
  • “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”   – Declaration of Independence
  • “Truth, justice, and the American way.” – Superman
  • “Give, devise and bequeath.” – Many, many wills.
  • Friends, Romans, Countrymen. Lend me your ears.“ – Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
  • “Government of the people, by the people, for the people“  – Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
  • “But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground.”   – Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
  • “Duty, honor, country.”
  • “Never in the history of human endeavor has so much been owed by so many to so few” (Sir Winston Churchill)
  • “Does our love not hold you, nor does my right hand having been given hold you, nor does Dido about to die with a cruel death hold you?”  …or the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name, property. — John Locke, 1689, Two Treatises of Government, Second Treatise, §123
  • “Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean.”
    – General Douglas MacArthur’s Address at West Point
  • “All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”“The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.”
    –  John F. Kennedy

And with that said, I will seize the moment and with this post and conclude it with, “Veni, vidi, vici . [I came, I saw,  I conquered.]” – Julius Caesar