"Τu nihil invita dices faciesve Minerva."

"Beware of attempting anything (in literary composition) for which nature has not gifted you—i.e., against the grain."

"Dura Exerce imperia, et ramos compesce fluentes."

"Exert a rigorous sway, And lop the too luxuriant boughs away."

"Multa quidem scripsi: sed que vitiosa putavi Emendaturis ignibus ipse dedi."

"Hâtez-vous lentement; et sans perdre courage, Vingt fois sur le métier remettez votre ouvrage: Polissez-le sans cesse…"

"Hasten then, but full slowly: don’t lose heart of grace; And your work twenty times on the easel replace. Be continua…"

"Idle reader: thou mayest believe me without any oath that I would this book, as it is the child of my brain, were the…"

"Where’er you find ‘the cooling western breeze,’ In the next line, it ‘whispers thro’ the trees;’ If crystal streams ‘…"

"The labour and tediousness of polishing (any work of art, poetry, painting, etc.) as though with a file."