The time never lies heavy upon him; it is impossible for him to be alone.

Our Grub-street biographers watch for the death of a great man like so many undertakers on purpose to make a penny of him.

Words, when well chosen, have so great a force in them, that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves.

The most skillful flattery is to let a person talk on, and be a listener.

I never knew a critic who made it his business to lash the faults of other writers that was not guilty of greater himself--as the hangman is generally a worse malefactor than the criminal that suffers by his hand.

It is odd to consider the connection between despotism and barbarity, and how the making one person more than man makes the rest less.

It is pleasant to see a notorious profligate seized with a concern for religion, and converting his spleen into zeal.