For this is the most civil sort of lie That can be given to a man's face. I now Say what I think.

It is not a merit to tolerate, but rather a crime to be intolerant.

Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

If certain Critics were as clearsighted as they are malignant, how great would be the benefit to be derived from their writings!

Power, like a desolating pestilence, Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience, Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame A mechanized automaton.

Constancy has nothing virtuous in itself, independently of the pleasure it confers, and partakes of the temporizing spirit of vice in proportion as it endures tamely moral defects of magnitude in the object of its indiscreet choice.

We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.