And force them, though it was in spite
Of Nature and their stars, to write.

And force them, though it was in spite
Of Nature and their stars, to write.

The pen is the tongue of the mind.
[Sp., La pluma es lengua del alma.]

The pen is the tongue of the mind.
[Sp., La pluma es lengua del alma.]

So that the jest is clearly to be seen,
Not in the words--but in the gap between;
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So that the jest is clearly to be seen,
Not in the words--but in the gap between;
Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,
The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.

But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces
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But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think.

Will you have all in all for prose and verse? Take the miracle
of our age, Sir Philip Sidney.

Will you have all in all for prose and verse? Take the miracle
of our age, Sir Philip Sidney.

As so I penned
It down, until at last it came to be,
For length and breadth, read more

As so I penned
It down, until at last it came to be,
For length and breadth, the bigness which you see.

But every fool describes, in these bright days,
His wondrous journey to some foreign court,
And spawns read more

But every fool describes, in these bright days,
His wondrous journey to some foreign court,
And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise,--
Death to his publisher, to him 'tis sport.

He who writes prose builds his temple to Fame in rubble; he who
writes verses builds it in granite.
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He who writes prose builds his temple to Fame in rubble; he who
writes verses builds it in granite.
- Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,

Indeed, unless a man can link his written thoughts with the
everlasting wants of men, so that they shall read more

Indeed, unless a man can link his written thoughts with the
everlasting wants of men, so that they shall draw more from them
as wells, there is no more immortality to the thoughts and
feelings of the soul than to the muscles and bones.