Writer as Bodhisattva

To the Public
Dear Reader, forgive what you do not approve, & love me for this energetic exertion of my talent

— William Blake, ​apologiatic preface to Jerusalem, later excised

Here I shall say nothing that has not been said before,

And in the art of prosody I have no skill.

I therefore have no thought that this might be of benefit to others;

I wrote it only to habituate my mind."

— Shantideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva*