There is time enough for everything in the course of the day if you do but one thing once; but there is not time enough in the year if you will do two things at a time.

An able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions. He is neither hot nor timid.

To write anything tolerable, the mind must be in a natural, proper disposition; provocatives, in that case, as well as in another,will only produce miserable, abortive performances.

In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.

I could wish there were a treaty made between the French and the English theatres, in which both parties should make considerableconcessions. The English ought to give up their notorious violations of the unities, and all their massacres, racks, dead bodies, and mangled carcasses, which they so frequently exhibit upon their stage. The French should engage to have more action, and less declamation, and not to cram and to crowd things together to almost a degree of impossibility from a too scrupulous adherence to the unities.

Elegance of manner is the outgrowth of refined and exalted sense.

In the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.