Nota Bene: Quotes from Horace, Ars Poetica

"So I'll play the whetstone's part, which makes steel sharp, but of itself cannot cut. Though I write naught myself, I will teach to poet's office and duty; whence he draws his stores; what nurtures and fashions him; what befits him and what not; whither the right course leads and whither the wrong."

"A poem is like a picture: one strikes your fancy more, the nearer you stand; another, the farther away."

"What you have not published you can destroy; the word once sent forth can never come back."

"Who saves a man against his will does the same as murder him."

"If you ever read aught to Quintilius, he would say: 'Pray correct this and this.' If, after two or three vain trials, you said you could not do better, he would bid you blot it out, and return the ill-shaped verses to the anvil. If you preferred defending your mistake to amending it, he would waste not a word more, would spend no fruitless toil, to prevent your loving yourself and your work alone without a rival. An honest and sensible man will censure lifeless lines, he will find fault with harsh ones; if they are graceless, he will draw his pen across and smear them with a black stroke; he will cut away pretentious ornament; he will force you to flood the obscure with light, will convict the doubtful phrase, will mark what should be changed, will prove an Aristarchus. He will not say, 'Why should I give offense to a friend about trifles?' These trifles will bring that friend into serious trouble, if once he has been laughed down and given an unlucky reception."