Read Over Your Compositions And Whenever You

It Matters Not How A Man Dies, But How He Lives. The Act Of Dying Is Not Of Importance, It Lasts So Short A Time.

Good Sense Alone Is A Sedate And Quiescent Quality, Which Manages Its Possessions Well, But Does Not Increase Them; It Collects Few Materials For Its Own Operations, And Preserves Safety, But Never Gains Supremacy.

Great Abilities Are Not Requisite For An Historian; For In Historical Composition, All The Greatest Powers Of The Human Mind Are Quiescent. He Has Facts Ready To His Hand; So There Is No Exercise Of Invention. Imagination Is Not Required In Any Degree; Only About As Much As Is Used In The Lowest Kinds Of Poetry. Some Penetration, Accuracy, And Coloring, Will Fit A Man For The Task, If He Can Give The Application Which Is Necessary.

There Is No Temper More Unpropitious To Interest Than Desultory Application And Unlimited Inquiry, By Which The Desires Are Held In A Perpetual Equipoise, And The Mind Fluctuates Between Different Purposes Without Determination.

No Knowledge Is Useless, With The Exception Of Heraldry.