His [Burke's] imperial fancy has laid all nature under tribute, and has collected riches from every scene of the creation and every walk of art.
Whatever an author puts between the two covers of his book is public property; whatever of himself he does not put there is his private property, as much as if he had never written a word.
Sumite materiam vestris, qui scribitis, sequam Viribus.
Ye who write, choose a subject suited to your abilities.</poem>
Tantum series juncturaque pollet.
Of so much force are system and connection.
<poem>Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.
Knowledge is the foundation and source of good writing. Horace—Ars Poetica. 309.
<poem>Nonumque prematur in annum.
Let it (what you have written) be kept back until the ninth year. Horace—Ars Poetica. 388.
<poem>But every little busy scribbler now
Swells with the praises which he gives himself; And, taking sanctuary in the crowd, Brags of his impudence, and scorns to mend. Horace—Of the Art of Poetry. 475. Wentworth Dillon's trans.
<poem>Deferar in vicum vendentem thus et odores,
Et piper, et quicquid chartis amicitur ineptis. I (i.e. my writings) shall be consigned to that part of the town where they sell incense, and scents, and pepper, and whatever is wrapped up in worthless paper. Horace—Epistles. Bk.n. I. 269.
<poem>Piger scribendi ferre laborem;
Scribendi recte, nam ut multum nil moror. Too indolent to bear the toil of writing; I mean of writing well; I say nothing about quantity. Horace—Satires. I. 4. 12.
<poem>Saepe stilum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint Scripturus.
Often turn the stile [correct with care], if you expect to write anything worthy of being read twice. Horace—Satires. I. 10. 72.
<poem>Written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond.
Jeremiah. XVII. 1.
{{Hoyt quote
| num = | text = <poem>He [Milton] was a Phidias that could cut a Colossus out of a rock, but could not cut heads out of cherry stones.
Samuel Johnson, according to Hannah More. (1781)
<poem>Each change of many-coloured life he drew,
Exhausted worlds and then imagined new: Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toil'd after him in vain.
<poem>The chief' glory of every people arises from its authors.
{{Hoyt quote
| num = | text = <poem>There are two things which I am confident I can do very well; one is an introduction to any literary work, stating what it is to contain, and how it should be executed in the most perfect manner. | author = Samuel Johnson | work = Boswell's Life of Johnson. (1755)
{{Hoyt quote
| num = | text = <poem>A man may write at any time if he set himself doggedly to it. | author = Samuel Johnson | work = Boswell's Life of Johnson. (1773)
{{Hoyt quote
| num = | text = <poem>No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. | author = Samuel Johnson | work = Boswell's Life of Johnson. (1776)
<poem>Tenet insanabile multo
Scribendi cacoethes, et asgro in corde senescit. An incurable itch for scribbling takes possession of many, and grows inveterate in their insane breasts. Juvenal—Satires. VII. 51.
<poem>Damn the age; I will write for Antiquity.
Charles Lamb—Bon Mots by Charles Lamb and Douglas Jerrold. Ed. by Walter Jerrold.
<poem>To write much, and to write rapidly, are empty boasts. The world desires to know what you have done, and not how you did it.
George Henry Lewes—The Spanish Drama. Ch. III.
<poem>If you once understand an author's character, the comprehension of his writings becomes easy.
<poem>Perhaps the greatest lesson which the lives of literary men teach us is told in a single word: Wait!
<poem>Whatever hath been written shall remain,
Nor be erased nor written o'er again; The unwritten only still belongs to thee: Take heed, and ponder well what that shall be.
Look, then, into thine heart and write!
