Authorship Quotes - Page 2

• Often turn the stile [correct with care], if you expect to write anything worthy of being read twice.
  [Lat., Saepe stilum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint Scripturus.]

  Horace

  Writing, Care, Worthy

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• It takes courage to be the author of your life.

  Nicholas Lore

  Life, Courage, Bravery

  Nicholas Lore (2012). “The Pathfinder: How to Choose Or Change Your Career for a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success”, p.180, Simon and Schuster

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• I didn't really escape that gravity until I moved 300 miles south to go to college at 18, where authorship no longer seemed something liable to induce vengeful punishment.

  David Knopfler

  College, Punishment, Liable

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• A man starts upon a sudden, takes Pen, Ink, and Paper, and without ever having had a thought of it before, resolves within himself he will write a Book; he has no Talent at Writing, but he wants fifty Guineas.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Book, Writing, Men

  "The Characters or Manners of the Present Age". Book by Jean de La Bruyère, Nicholas Rowe, Chapter XV, 1688.

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• The lover of letters loves power too.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Letters, Lovers, Power Of Love

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2489, Delphi Classics

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• He who writes distichs, wishes, I suppose, to please by brevity. But, tell me, of what avail is their brevity, when there is a whose book full of them?

  Martial

  Book, Writing, Wish

  Martial (1871). “The Epigrams of Martial”, p.362

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• A man of moderate Understanding, thinks he writes divinely: A man of good Understanding, thinks he writes reasonably.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Writing, Men, Thinking

  "The Characters or Manners of the Present Age". Book by Jean de La Bruyère, Nicholas Rowe, Ch. I., 1688.

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• Too indolent to bear the toil of writing; I mean of writing well; I say nothing about quantity.
  [Lat., Piger scribendi ferre laborem;
  Scribendi recte, nam ut multum nil moror.]

  Horace

  Mean, Writing, Bears

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• Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.

  Moliere

  Love, Funny, Money

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• If God is the author of life, there must be a script.

  Ravi Zacharias

  Life, God, Religious

  FaceBook post by Ravi Zacharias from Jul 07, 2013

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• No author ever drew a character consistent to human nature, but he was forced to ascribe to it many inconsistencies.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Nature, Character, Consistent

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• 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.

  George Crabbe

  Love, Running, Dark

  George Crabbe, John Crabbe (1834). “The poetical works of the Rev. George Crabbe: in eight volumes”, p.145

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• Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.

  William Cowper

  Genius, Substitutes, Wit

  William Cowper, John William Cunningham (1835). “The works ¬of William Cowper: Poems : with an essay on the genius and poetry of Cowper”, p.19

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• Good ideas come from everywhere. It's more important to recognize a good idea than to author it.

  Jeanne Gang

  Wisdom, Ideas, Design

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• Authorship is, according to the spirit in which it is pursued, an infamy, a pastime, a day-labor, a handicraft, an art, a science, a virtue.

  August Wilhelm von Schlegel

  Art, Spirit, Virtue

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• What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we're truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it's bad enough not getting what you want, but it's even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn't, in fact, what you wanted all along.

  Alain de Botton

  Giving Up, Ambition, Journey

  "What's A Kinder Way To Frame Success?". Interview with Guy Raz, www.npr.org. November 1, 2013.

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• People's interest is in the product, not in its authorship.

  Jonathan Ive

  People, Design, Interest

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• Successful writers learn at last what they should learn at first,--to be intelligently simple.

  Josh Billings

  Successful, Simple, Lasts

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• All authors to their own defects are blind.

  John Dryden

  Blind, Defects

  John Dryden (1808). “The works of John Dryden: now first collected in eighteen volumes. Illustrated with notes, historical, critical, and explanatory, and a life of the author”, p.211

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• The idea that it is necessary to go to a university in order to become a successful writer . . . is one of those fantasies that surround authorship.

  Vera Brittain

  Successful, Order, Ideas

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• The pen is the tongue of the hand; a silent utterer of words for the eye.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Eye, Hands, Tongue

  Henry Ward Beecher (1862). “Eyes and Ears”, p.261

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• Authorship has never been with me a matter of choice. I have not done it for amusement, or for money, or for fame, or for any reason but because I could not help it.

  Harriet Martineau

  Choices, Done, Amusement

  Harriet Martineau (2006). “Autobiography”, p.155, Broadview Press

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• The motives and purposes of authors are not always so pure and high, as, in the enthusiasm of youth, we sometimes imagine. To many the trumpet of fame is nothing but a tin horn to call them home, like laborers from, the field, at dinner-time, and they think themselves lucky to get the dinner.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Home, Thinking, Enthusiasm

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (2012). “Kavanagh (Annotated Edition)”, p.46, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Authors must not, like Chinese soldiers, expect to win victories by turning somersets in the air.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Winning, Air, Soldier

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Illustrated)”, p.2078, Delphi Classics

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• This is the magnanimity of authorship, when a writer having a topic presented to him, fruitful of beauties for common minds, waives his privilege, and trusts to the judicious few for understanding the reason of his abstinence.

  Charles Lamb

  Understanding, Mind, Topics

  Charles Lamb (1864). “Eliana: Being the Hitherto Uncollected Writings of Charles Lamb”, p.25

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