That writer does the most, who gives his reader the most knowledge, and takes from him the least time.
C.C. Colton, Lacon: Preface
Ahhhhh, personal writings (otherwise known as your free sleep aids). Let's call them reflections, interpretations, ponderings, penned walkabouts, or current drafts. They attempt to connect inspiring teachers, philosophers, and sometimes undefinable fountains of knowledge -- and to connect me with them. At other links, I have noted some of my fountains and included some of their original expositions. Please join these conversations. Send along your thoughts. Unpack your teachers and fountains. Open-ended and open-minded cogitation continues...
The nobler the truth or sentiment, the less imports the question of authorship.
Emerson, Letters and Social Aims: Quotation and Originality
To write and to live are very different. Many who praise virtue do no more than to praise it.
Johnson, Works (Vol. iii, p. 83, Hawkins, ed.)
If the works of the great poets teach anything, it is to hold mere invention somewhat cheap. It is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found, that is of consequence.
J.R. Lowell, My Study Windows: Chaucer
The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.
Samuel Johnson (Boswell, Life, 1775)
Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.
Pascal, Pensées (#23)
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
Samuel Johnson (Boswell, Life, 1776)
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