It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.

The most noble criticism is that in which the critic is not the antagonist so much as the rival of the author.

Quotations, like much better things, has its abuses.

Those who do not read criticism will rarely merit to be criticised.

A well-read writer, with good taste, is one who has the command of the wit of other men; he searches where knowledge is to be found; and though he may not himself excel in invention, his ingenuity may compose one of those agreeable books, the deliciæ of literature, that will out-last the fading meteors of his day.

Literary friendship is a sympathy not of manners, but of feelings.

It is generally supposed that where there is no QUOTATION, there will be found most originality; and as people like to lay out their money according to their notions, our writers usually furnish their pages rapidly with the productions of their own soil: they run up a quickset hedge, or plant a poplar, and get trees and hedges of this fashion much faster than the former landlords procured their timber. The greater part of our writers, in consequence, have become so original, that no one cares to imitate them; and those who never quote, in return are never quoted!