Few rash of any modern nation have a proper sense of an aesthetical whole; they praise and blame by parts; they are charmed by passages. And who has greater reason to rejoice in this than actors, since the stage is ever but a patched and piecemeal matter?

To make converts is the natural ambition of everyone.

We who didn't inherit political power nor are made to acquire riches like nothing better than that which expands and solidifies the power of the spirit.

It is in the half fools and the half wise that the greatest danger lies.

Superstition is the poetry of life. It is inherent in man's nature; and when we think it is wholly eradicated, it takes refuge in the strangest holes and corners, whence it peeps out all at once, as soon as it can do it with safety.

People have a peculiar pleasure in making converts, that is, in causing others to enjoy what they enjoy, thus finding their own likeness represented and reflected back to them.

A man may twist as he pleases, and do what he pleases, but he inevitably comes back to the track to which nature has destined him.