Oh, we are ridiculous animals; and if the angels have any fun in them, how we must divert them!

Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice.

[French] authors are more afraid of offending delicacy and rules, than ambitious of sublimity.

Who has begun has half done. Have the courage to be wise. Begin!

An ancient prophecy ... pronounced, That the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it!

[Corneille] was inspired by Roman authors and Roman spirit, Racine with delicacy by the polished court of Louis XIV.

Two large prominent eyes that rolled about to no purpose (for he was utterly short-sighted) a wide mouth, thick lips and inflated visage, gave him the air of a blind trumpeter. A deep untuneable voice which, instead of modulating, he enforced with unnecsessary pomp, a total neglect of his person, and ignorance of every civil attention, disgusted all who judge by appearance.