A statuary about the Aemilian school shall of himself, with singular skill, both express the nails, and imitate in brass the flexible hair; unhappy yet in the main, because he knows not how to finish a complete piece.  I would no more choose to be such a one as this, had I a mind to compose any thing, than to live with a distorted nose, [though] remarkable for black eyes and jetty hair.

Ye who write, make choice of a subject suitable to your abilities; and revolve in your thoughts a considerable time what your strength declines, and what it is able to support.  Neither elegance of style, nor a perspicuous disposition, shall desert the man, by whom the subject matter is chosen judiciously.

This, or I am mistaken, will constitute the merit and beauty of arrangement, that the poet just now say what ought just now to be said, put off most of his thoughts, and waive them for the present.

In the choice of his words, too, the author of the projected poem must be delicate and cautious, he must embrace one and reject another:  you will express yourself eminently well, if a dexterous combination should give an air of novelty to a well-known word.  If it happen to be necessary to explain some abstruse subjects by new invented terms; it will follow that you must frame words never heard of by the old-fashioned Cethegi:  and the license will be granted, if modestly used:  and the new and lately-formed words will have authority, if they descend from a Greek source, with a slight deviation.  But why should the Romans grant to Plutus and Caecilius a privilege denied to Virgil and Varius?  Why should I be envied, if I have it in my power to acquire a few words, when the language of Cato and Ennius has enriched our native tongue, and produced new names of things?  It has been, and ever will be, allowable to coin a word marked with the stamp in present request.  As leaves in the woods are changed with the fleeting years; the earliest fall off first:  in this manner words perish with old age, and those lately invented nourish and thrive, like men in the time of youth.  We, and our works, are doomed to death:  Whether Neptune, admitted into the continent, defends our fleet from the north winds, a kingly work; or the lake, for a long time unfertile and fit for oars, now maintains its neighboring cities and feels the heavy plow; or the river, taught to run in a more convenient channel, has changed its course which was so destructive to the fruits.  Mortal works must perish:  much less can the honor and elegance of language be long-lived.  Many words shall revive, which now have fallen off; and many which are now in esteem shall fall off, if it be the will of custom, in whose power is the decision and right and standard of language.

Homer has instructed us in what measure the achievements of kings, and chiefs, and direful war might be written.

Plaintive strains originally were appropriated to the unequal numbers [of the elegiac]:  afterward [love and] successful desires were included.  Yet what author first published humble elegies, the critics dispute, and the controversy still waits the determination of a judge.