Shakespeare's fault is not the greatest into which a poet may fall. It merely indicates a deficiency of taste.

Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.

Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.

Distance is a great promoter of admiration.

At an early age I sucked up the milk of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Terence, Anacreon, Plato and Euripides, diluted with that of Moses and the prophets.

Scepticism is the first step toward truth.

I am more affected by the attractions of virtue than by the deformities of vice; I turn gently away from the wicked and I fly to meet the good. If there is in a literary work, in a character, in a picture, in a statue, a beautiful spot, that is where my eyes rest; I see only that, I remember only that, all the rest is well-nigh forgotten. What becomes of me when the whole work is beautiful!