He who proposes to be an author should first be a student.

For danger levels man and brute And all are fellows in their need.

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.

Nor is the people's judgment always true: the most may err as grossly as the few.

When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind!

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

Great souls forgive not injuries till time has put their enemies within their power, that they may show forgiveness is their own.