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.

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.

Proverbs were bright shafts in the Greek and Latin quivers.

There is a society in the deepest solitude.

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.

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

Every work of Genius is tinctured by the feelings, and often originates in the events of times.