"The old proverb, applied to fire and water, may with equal truth be applied to the imagination - it is a good servant, but a bad master."

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I have made a very rude translation of the Seven against Thebes, and Pindar too I have looked at, and wish he was better worth translating. I believe even the best things are not equal to their fame. Perhaps it would be better to translate fame itself,--or is not that what the poets themselves do? However, I have not done with Pindar yet.

— Henry David Thoreau