Say what we will, we may be sure that ambition is an error. Its wear and tear on the heart are never recompensed.

Agreeable surprises are the perquisites of youth.

The mind profits by the wrecks of every passion.

Happy indeed the poet of whom, like Orpheus, nothing is known but an immortal name! Happy next, perhaps, the poet of whom, like Homer, nothing is known but the immortal works. The more the merely human part of the poet remains a mystery, the more willing is the reverence given to his divine mission.

Invention is nothing more than a fine deviation from, or enlargement on a fine model . . .

To how many is the death of the beloved the parent of faith!

A man who cannot win fame in big own age will have a very small chance of winning it from posterity. True, there are some half-dozen exceptions to this truth among millions of myriads that attest it; but what man of common sense would invest any large amount of hope in so unpromising a lottery?