And one might therefore say of me that in this book I have only made up a bunch of other people's flowers, and that of my own I have only provided the string that ties them together.

Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.

I am one of those who hold that poetry is never so blithe as in a wanton and irregular subject.

We seem ambitious God's whole work to undo. ...With new diseases on ourselves we war, And with new physic, a worse engine far.

And obstinacy is the sister of constancy, at least in vigour and stability.

Our speech has its weaknesses and its defects, like all the rest. Most of the occasions for the troubles of the world are grammatical.

To understand via the heart is not to understand.