A learned historian declared to me of a contemporary, that the latter had appropriated his researches; he might, indeed, and he had a right to refer to the same originals; but if his predecessor had opened the sources for him, gratitude is not a silent virtue.

Fortune has rarely condescended to be the companion of genius.

Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit which hovers over the production of genius.

After all, it is style alone by which posterity will judge of a great work, for an author can have nothing truly his own but his style.

The art of quotation requires more delicacy in the practice than those conceive who can see nothing more in a quotation than an extract. Whenever the mind of a writer is saturated with the full inspiration of a great author, a quotation gives completeness to the whole; it seals his feelings with undisputed authority.

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

If the golden gate of preferment is not usually opened to men of real merit, persons of no worth have entered it in a most extraordinary manner.