Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit which hovers over the production of genius, throwing the reader of a book, or the spectator of a statue, into the very ideal presence whence these works have really originated. A great work always leaves us in a state of musing.
Isaac D'IsraeliThe most noble criticism is that in which the critic is not the antagonist so much as the rival of the author.
Isaac D'IsraeliQuotation, like much better things, has its abuses. One may quote till one compiles. The ancient lawyers used to quote at the bar till they had stagnated their own cause.
Isaac D'IsraeliThe ancients, who in these matters were not perhaps such blockheads as some may conceive, considered poetical quotation as one of the requisite ornaments of oratory.
Isaac D'Israeli