Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe.

Simplicity is an exact mediumbetween too little and too much.

The young mind is pliable and imitates, but in more advanced states grows rigid and must be warmed and softened before it will receive a deep impression.

Taste depends upon those finer emotions which make the organization of the soul.

And he who does not know himself does not know others, so it may be said with equal truth, that he who does not know others knows himself but very imperfectly.

The excellence of every art, must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose

It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.