In science, mistakes always precede the truth

Pedants make a great rout about criticism, as if it were a science of great depth, and required much pains and knowledge--criticism however is only the result of good sense, taste and judgment--three qualities that indeed seldom are found together, and extremely seldom in a pedant, which most critics are.

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

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!

I do not dislike the French from the vulgar antipathy between neighboring nations, but for their insolent and unfounded air of superiority.

How posterity will laugh at us, one way or other! If half a dozen break their necks, and balloonism is exploded, we shall be called fools for having imagined it could be brought to use: if it should be turned to account, we shall be ridiculed for having doubted.

[King René of Anjou (1409-80)] would not listen to the news of his son having lost the Kingdom of Naples, because he would not bedisturbed when painting a picture of a partridge.