Fortune has rarely condescended to be the companion of genius.

Self-love is a principle of action; but among no class of human beings has nature so profusely distributed this principle of life and action as through the whole sensitive family of genius.

Whenever we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, an opening quotation is a symphony preluding on the chords whose tones we are about to harmonize.

An excessive indulgence in the pleasures of social life constitutes the great interests of a luxuriant and opulent age.

There is an art of reading, an art of thinking, and an art of writing.

Many men of genius must arise before a particular man of genius can appear.

A great work always leaves us in a state of musing.