Use of く-form over くて in an い-adjective

Question

何事も最初は難しく、やがてやさしくなる。
All things are difficult before they are easy.

I've never seen an い-adjective used in this way (難しく). Would using 難しくて (which is what I would have used) change the meaning of the sentence?

Answer 1

There are two ways to form sentence conjunctions using 用言{ようげん} (inflectable words) in Japanese sentences:

• the て-form; e.g., 難しくて, 走って
• the 連用形{れんようけい}; e.g., 難しく, 走り

It is called the 中止形{ちゅうしけい} when you use the 連用形 as a conjunction.

Nuance-wise, using the 中止形 is a little more literary, so it can give a more formal feel to the sentence.