Those who place their affections at first on trifles for amusement, will find these trifles become at last their most serious concerns.

The work of eradicating crimes is not by making punishment familiar, but formidable.

With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.

What cities, as great as this, have... promised themselves immortality! Posterity can hardly trace the situation of some. The sorrowful traveller wanders over the awful ruins of others... Here stood their citadel, but now grown over with weeds; there their senate-house, but now the haunt of every noxious reptile; temples and theatres stood here, now only an undistinguished heap of ruins.

To me more dear, congenial to my heart, One native charm, than all the gloss of art.

It is impossible to combat enthusiasm with reason; for though it makes a show of resistance, it soon eludes the pressure, refers you to distinctions not to be understood, and feelings which it cannot explain. A man who would endeavor to fix an enthusiast by argument might as well attempt to spread quicksilver with his finger.

Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace the day's disasters in his morning face.