A poet, as he is the author to others of the highest wisdom, pleasure, virtue, and glory, so he ought personally to be the happiest, the best, the wisest, and the most illustrious of men.

... Virtue owns a more eternal foe Than Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime, And bloody Faith the foulest birth of Time.

I am convinced that there can be no regeneration of mankind until laughter is put down.

Revenge is the naked idol of the worship of a semi-barbarous age.

Among true and real friends, all is common; and were ignorance and envy and superstition banished from the world, all mankind would be friend.

The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose.

A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.