The Most Heterogeneous Ideas Are Yoked By

...it Will Not Always Happen That The Success Of A Poet Is Proportionate To His Labor.

For Who Is Pleased With Himself.

Advice, As It Always Gives A Temporary Appearance Of Superiority, Can Never Be Very Grateful, Even When It Is Most Necessary Or Most Judicious. But For The Same Reason Everyone Is Eager To Instruct His Neighbours. To Be Wise Or To Be Virtuous Is To Buy Dignity And Importance At A High Price; But When Nothing Is Necessary To Elevation But Detection Of The Follies Or Faults Of Others, No Man Is So Insensible To The Voice Of Fame As To Linger On The Ground.

I Have Protracted My Work Till Most Of Those Whom I Wished To Please Have Sunk Into The Grave, And Success And Miscarriage Are Empty Sounds: I Therefore Dismiss It With Frigid Tranquillity, Having Little To Fear Or Hope From Censure Or From Praise.

Consultation And Compliance Can Conduce Little To The Perfection Of Any Literary Performance; For Whoever Is So Doubtful Of His Own Abilities As To Encourage The Remarks Of Others, Will Find Himself Every Day Embarrassed With New Difficulties, And Will Harass His Mind, In Vain, With The Hopeless Labour Of Uniting Heterogeneous Ideas, Digesting Independent Hints, And Collecting Into One Point The Several Rays Of Borrowed Light, Emitted Often With Contrary Directions.