Tyrants are but the spawn of Ignorance, Begotten by the slaves they trample on.

A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.

Reading enables us to see with the keenest eyes, to hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time.

Scepticism commonly takes up the room left by defect of imagination, and is the very quality of mind most likely to seek for sensual proof of supersensual things. If one came from the dead it could not believe; and yet it longs for such a witness, and will put up with a very dubious one.

The pale and quiet moon Makes her calm forehead bare, And the last fragments of the storm, Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea, Silent and few, are drifting over me.

The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down, and still fluttered down the snow.

Though old the thought and oft exprest, Tis his at last who says it best.