The universality of a custom is pledge of its worth.

the labors of the true critic are more essential to the author, even, than to the reader.

If we go to church we are confronted with a system of begging so complicated and so resolute that all other demands sink into insignificance by its side.

There is something frightful in being required to enjoy and appreciate all masterpieces; to read with equal relish Milton, and Dante, and Calderon, and Goethe, and Homer, and Scott, and Voltaire, and Wordsworth, and Cervantes, and Molière, and Swift.

Wit is as infinite as love, and a deal more lasting in its qualities.

It is impossible to withhold education from the receptive mind, as it is impossible to force it upon the unreasoning.

There is no illusion so permanent as that which enables us to look backward with complacency; there is no mental process so deceptive as the comparing of recollections with realities.