Let us suppose, that the Old and New worlds were formerly but one continent, and that, by a violent earthquake, the ancient Atalantis [sic] of Plato was sunk ... The sea would necessarily rush in from all quarters, and form what is now called the Atlantic ocean.

The style is the man himself.

We can only penetrate the rind of the earth.

All the work of the crystallographers serves only to demonstrate that there is only variety everywhere where they suppose uniformity ... that in nature there is nothing absolute, nothing perfectly regular.

The sublime can only be found in the great subjects. Poetry, history and philosophy all have the same object, and a very great object-Man and Nature. Philosophy describes and depicts Nature. Poetry paints and embellishes it. It also paints men, it aggrandizes them, it exaggerates them, it creates heroes and gods. History only depicts man, and paints him such as he is.

Man thinks, and at once becomes the master of the beings that do not think.

Genius is simply patience carried to the extreme.