Why the two translations of Blaise Pascal's quote about brevity make me smile

Blaise Pascal offered one of the great writing quotes: Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte. It's usually translated as "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time." The more literal translation is "I made this [letter] very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter." I smile because the less