Many works of mediocrity might have approached to excellence, had this art of the mind been exercised.

Many volatile writers might have reached even to deep thinking, had they bestowed a day of meditation before a day of composition, and thus engendered their thoughts.

Many productions of genius have originally been enveloped in feebleness and obscurity, which have only been brought to perfection by repeated acts of the mind.

There is a maxim of Confucius, which in the translation seems quaint, but which is pregnant with sense-- Labour, but slight not meditation; Meditate, but slight not labour.
Few works of magnitude presented themselves at once, in their extent and with their associations, to their authors.

Two or three striking circumstances, unobserved before, are perhaps all which the man of genius perceives.