Of Books

I have no doubt that I often speak of things that are handled much better and more accurately by those who are masters of the profession. What you have here is purely an essay of my natural faculties, and not at all of my acquired ones.

Whoever catches me stumbling in ignorance will not get the better of me; I would be very unwilling to be responsible to anyone else for my writings, since I am not responsible even to myself, nor am I satisfied with them.

“My horse must work according to my step.” — Propertius

Whoever goes in search of knowledge, let them fish for it where it is to be found; there is nothing I claim less than expertise. These are my own fancies, through which I do not pretend to discover things, but only myself.

Perhaps they will be known to me one day, or have been known to me before, depending on whether fortune brought me to the places where they were explained; but I have utterly forgotten them now. And if I am a man of some reading, I am a man of no retention.

Thus I guarantee nothing for certain, except my intention to show to what extent my knowledge now extends. Let no one look at the subjects, but at my fashion of treating them. Let them see, in what I borrow, whether I have known how to choose what would fit my theme. For I make others say what I cannot say so well, sometimes through weakness of my language, sometimes through weakness of my senses. I do not count my borrowings, I weigh them.