Content thyself to be obscurely good.

We are growing serious, and, let me tell you, that's the very next step to being dull.

We find that Good and Evil happen alike to all Men on this Side of the Grave; and as the principle Design of Tragedy is to raise Commiseration and Terror in the Minds of the Audience, we shall defeat this great End, if we always make Virtue and Innocence happy and successful.

But in all despotic governments, though a particular prince may favour arts and letter, there is a natural degeneracy of mankind.

We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.

When a man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman.

With what astonishment and veneration may we look into our own souls, where there are such hidden stores of virtue and knowledge, such inexhaustible sources of perfection. We know not yet what we shall be, nor will it ever enter into the heart to conceive the glory that will be always in reserve for it.