Oh that I were seated as high as my ambition, I'd place my naked foot on the necks of monarchs.

Dr. Calder [a Unitarian minister] said of Dr. [Samuel] Johnson on the publications of Boswell and Mrs. Piozzi, that he was like Actaeon, torn to pieces by his own pack.

This world is a comedy, not Life.

History is a romance that is believed; romance, a history that is not believed.

Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony.

I have sometimes seen women, who would have been sensible enough, if they would have been content not to be called women of sense--but by aiming at what they had not, they only proved absurd--for sense cannot be counterfeited.

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