If you treat men the way they are you never improve them. If you treat them the way you want them to be, you do.

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.

So much has already been said about Shakespeare that there doesn't seem to be anything more to say; yet it is the quality of the spirit that it forever stimulates the spirit.

Nothing is good for a nation but that which arises from its own core and its own general wants, without apish imitation of another.

To tremble before anticipated evils is to bemoan what thou hast never lost.

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.

One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.