A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.
Though old the thought and oft exprest, Tis his at last who says it best.
No mud can soil us but the mud we throw.
A sneer is the weapon of the weak.
There is a law of neutralization of forces, which hinders bodies from sinking beyond a certain depth in the sea; but in the ocean of baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the sinking.
These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred, Each softly lucent as a rounded moon; The diver Omar plucked them from their bed, Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread.