Honor puts us under an obligation as binding as necessity is for other people.

There is no book so bad that it is not profitable in some part. -Nullus est liber tam malus ut non aliqua parte prosit

Glory ought to be the consequence, not the motive of our actions.

Necessity, that excellent master, hath taught me many things.

He [Pliny the Elder] used to say that 'no book [etc] was so bad but some good might be got out of it'.

Literature is both my joy and my comfort: it can add to every happiness and there is no sorrow it cannot console.

So we must work at our profession and not make anybody else's idleness an excuse for our own. There is no lack of readers and listeners; it is for us to produce something worth being written and heard.