For books we shall generally find that the most excellent in any art or
science have been still the smallest and most compendious; and this not
without ground, for it is an argument that the author was a master of
what he wrote, and had a clear notion and a full comprehension of the
subject before him. For the reason of things lies in a little compass,
if the mind could at any time be so happy as to light upon it. Most of
the writings and discourses in the world are but illustration and
rhetoric, which signifies as much as nothing to a mind eager in pursuit
after the causes and philosophical truth of things.... The truth is,
there could be no such thing as art or science, could not the mind of
man gather the general natures of things out of the heap of numberless
particulars, and then bind them up into such short aphorisms or
propositions, that so they may be made portable to the memory, and
thereby become ready and at hand for the judgement to apply and make use
of as there shall be occasion.--R. SOUTH. _Sermon against long extempore
prayers._
There are many books written by many men, from which two truths only are
discoverable by the readers; namely, that the writers thereof wanted two
things,--principle and preferment.--C. C. COLTON. _Lacon._