Francisci Hotomani iurisconsulti observationum liber IIII

In correcting these, a few learned men in our own century have labored with the highest praise and glory of intellect. Yet we see these outstanding labors despised and held for nothing by I know not what brawlers, sophists, and charlatans. Because I judge them to be born not for letters but for the plow, and not to be of sound mind, I deem them rather to be held in contempt than refuted. As for me, their insane insults are so far from deterring me from this kind of study that I believe there is no type of writing in which I think one should labor more, none in which the light of intellect shines more clearly and brightly, and none from which the sharpness of a writer is better recognized. For to pour out words and to transcribe what has already been written by others—with some words changed—and, as our people once used to say, to do the same thing in another way: this is within the ability of any man who is even moderately trained in the Latin tongue. Baldus himself and Salicetus—to name no others—commemorate almost nothing except what Bartolus had written, sometimes even in the same words. But to notice an error in some writer and to think out how each thing ought to be corrected: here is the task, here is the labor, and from this, I believe, the laurel of intellect should be sought, not (as it was once said) from a must cake An idiom suggesting success is not found in cheap or trivial things..