We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were
to publish your paper, it would be impossible for us to publish
any work of lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that in the
next thousand years we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret,
compelled to return your divine composition, and to beg you a
thousand times to overlook our short sight and timidity.
-- A rejection notice slip a Chinese economic journal
-- Source: Mark Seiden, Wired
We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid
of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. We want men
and women who shall renovate life and our social state but we see that
most natures are insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants, have an
ambition out of all proportion to their practical force, and so do lean
and beg day and night continually....