The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do without thought of fame. If it comes at all it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after.
The motives and purposes of authors are not always so pure and high, as, in the enthusiasm of youth, we sometimes imagine. To many the trumpet of fame is nothing but a tin horn to call them home, like laborers from, the field, at dinner-time, and they think themselves lucky to get the dinner.
Many people do not allow their principles to take root, but pull them up every now and then, as children do the flowers they have planted, to see if they are growing.
If the mind, that rules the body, ever so far forgets itself as to trample on its slave, the slave is never generous enough to forgive the injury, but will rise and smite the oppressor.
Then from the neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest of singers, Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the water, Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music, That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen.
The bells themselves are the best of preachers, Their brazen lips are learned teachers, From their pulpits of stone, in the upper air, Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw, Shriller than trumpets under the Law, Now a sermon and now a prayer.
Whatever hath been written shall remain,
Nor be erased nor written o'er again;
The unwritten only still belongs to thee:
Take heed, and ponder well what that shall be.
So disasters come not singly; But as if they watched and waited, Scanning one another's motions, When the first descends, the others Follow, follow, gathering flock-wiseRound their victim, sick and wounded, First a shadow, then a sorrow, Till the air is dark with anguish.