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To have good sense, is the first principle and fountain of writing well.

— Horace Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (-18)

Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.

Original text (Latin)

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Notes from Wikiquote

Line 309

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Writing

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To flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom.

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He wins every hand who mingles profit with pleasure, by delighting and instructing the reader at the same time.

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What odds does it make to the man who lives within Nature's bounds, whether he ploughs a hundred acres or a thousand?

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The mountains will be in labor, and a ridiculous mouse will be brought forth.

Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (-18)

He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin!

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Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
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William Wordsworth Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Horace (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.