A Successful Author Is Equally In Danger

By The Consultation Of Books, Whether Of Dead Or Living Authors, Many Temptations To Petulance And Opposition, Which Occur In Oral Conferences, Are Avoided. An Author Cannot Obtrude His Service Unasked, Nor Can Be Often Suspected Of Any Malignant Intention To Insult His Readers With His Knowledge Or His Wit. Yet So Prevalent Is The Habit Of Comparing Ourselves With Others, While They Remain Within The Reach Of Our Passions, That Books Are Seldom Read With Complete Impartiality, But By Those From Whom The Writer Is Placed At Such A Distance That His Life Or Death Is Indifferent.

He That Compares What He Has Done With What He Has Left Undone, Will Feel The Effect Which Must Always Follow The Comparison Of Imagination With Reality; He Will Look With Contempt On His Own Unimportance, And Wonder To What Purpose He Came Into The World; He Will Repine That He Shall Leave Behind Him No Evidence Of His Having Been, That He Has Added Nothing To The System Of Life, But Has Glided From Youth To Age Among The Crowd, Without Any Effort For Distinction.

No Degree Of Knowledge Attainable By Man Is Able To Set Him Above The Want Of Hourly Assistance.

Men Have Solicitude About Fame; And The Greater Share They Have Of It, The More Afraid They Are Of Losing It.

To Set The Mind Above The Appetites Is The End Of Abstinence, Which One Of The Fathers Observes To Be Not A Virtue, But The Groundwork Of Virtue.