When the chord of monotony is stretched to its tightest, it breaks with the sound of a song.

By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece.

Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.

People talk of the pathos and failure of plain women; but it is a more terrible thing that a beautiful woman may succeed in everything but womanhood.

Whatever the word "great" means, Dickens was what it means.

What are we going to do?" asked the Professor. "At this moment," said Syme, with a scientific detachment, "I think we are going to smash into a lamppost.

What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may simply mean mental activity.