I maintain, against the enemies of the stage, that patterns of piety, decently represented, may second the precepts.

A lazy frost, a numbness of the mind.

He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. . . . He was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. . . . He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating in to clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some occasion is presented to him.

Welcome, thou kind deceiver! Thou best of thieves; who, with an easy key, Dost open life, and, unperceived by us, Even steal us from ourselves.

Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense, But good men starve for want of impudence.

Imitators are but a servile kind of cattle.

The secret pleasure of a generous act Is the great mind's great bribe.