Heroic poetry has ever been esteemed the greatest work of human nature.
Discover the opinion of your enemies, which is commonly the truest; for they will give you no quarter, and allow nothing to complaisance.
For truth has such a face and such a mien, as to be loved needs only to be seen.
Nor is the people's judgment always true: the most may err as grossly as the few.
All habits gather by unseen degrees.
I maintain, against the enemies of the stage, that patterns of piety, decently represented, may second the precepts.