All the poets are indebted more or less to those who have gone before them; even Homer's originality has been questioned, and Virgil owes almost as much to Theocritus, in his Pastorals, as to Homer, in his Heroics; and if our own countryman, Milton, has soared above both Homer and Virgil, it is because he has stolen some feathers from their wings.

The mob is a monster, with the hands of Briareus, but the head of Polyphemus,--strong to execute, but blind to perceive.

Bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret.

The reign of terror to which France submitted has been more justly termed "the reign of cowardice." One knows not which most to execrate,--the nation that could submit to suffer such atrocities, or that low and bloodthirsty demagogue that could inflict them. France, in succumbing to such a wretch as Robespierre, exhibited, not her patience, but her pusillanimity.

He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be; and he that studies men, will know how things are.

Death is like thunder in two particulars; we are alarmed, at the sound of it; and it is formidable only from that which preceded it.

All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay and present praise.