Good sense is both the first principal and the parent source of good writing.

One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.

The aim of the poet is to inform or delight, or to combine together, in what he says, both pleasure and applicability to life. In instructing, be brief in what you say in order that your readers may grasp it quickly and retain it faithfully. Superfluous words simply spill out when the mind is already full. Fiction invented in order to please should remain close to reality.

Let those who drink not, but austerely dine, dry up in law; the Muses smell of wine.

Where there are many beauties in a poem I shall not cavil at a few faults proceeding either from negligence or from the imperfection of our nature.

I would not exchange my life of ease and quiet for the riches of Arabia.

Words challenge eternity.