And hold up to the sun my little taper.
Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength,
And ponder well your subject, and its length;
Nor lift your load, before you're quite aware
What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.
La pluma es lengua del alma.
The pen is the tongue of the mind.
Apt Alliteration's artful aid.
That writer does the most, who gives his reader the most knowledge, and takes from him the least time.
C. C. Colton—Lacon. Preface.
Habits of close attention, thinking heads,
Become more rare as dissipation spreads,
Till authors hear at length one general cry
Tickle and entertain us, or we die!
None but an author knows an author's cares,
Or Fancy's fondness for the child she bears.
So that the jest is clearly to be seen,
Not in the words—but in the gap between;
Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,
The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.
Oh! rather give me commentators plain,
Who with no deep researches vex the brain;
Who from the dark and doubtful love to run,
And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun.
Aucun fiel n'a jamais empoisonne 1 ma plume.
No gall has ever poisoned my pen.
Smelling of the lamp.
"Gracious heavens!" he cries out, leaping up and catching hold of his hair, "what's this? Print!"
And choose an author as you choose a friend.
The men, who labour and digest things most,
Will be much apter to despond than boast;
For if your author be profoundly good,
'Twill cost you dear before he's understood.
When I want to read a book I write one.
The author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.
The unhappy man, who once has trail'd a pen,
Lives not to please himself, but other men;
Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood,
Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.
All writing comes by the grace of God, and all doing and having.
For no man can write anything who does not think that what he writes is, for the time, the history of the world.
The lover of letters loves power too.
The writer, like a priest, must be exempted from secular labor. His work needs a frolic health; he must be at the top of his condition.
like his that lights a candle to the sun.
Les sots font le texte, et les hommes d'esprit les commentaires.
Fools make the text, and men of wit the commentaries.
Envy's a sharper spur than pay:
No author ever spar'd a brother;
Wits are gamecocks to one another.
The most original modern authors are not so because they advance what is new, but simply because they know how to put what they have to say, as if it had never been said before.
One writer, for instance, excels at a plan, or a title-page, another works away the body of the book, and a third is a dab at an index.
"The Republic of Letters" is a very common expression among the Europeans.
Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse.
