When merciless ambition, or mad zeal, has led two hosts of dupes to battlefield, That, blind, they there may dig each other's graves, And call the sad work glory.

Contemporary criticism only represents the amount of ignorance genius has to contend with. . . . Time will reverse the judgement of the vulgar.

That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the moon.

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Human vanity is so constituted that it stiffens before difficulties. The more an object conceals itself from our eyes, the greater the effort we make to seize it, because it pricks our pride, it excites our curiosity and it appears interesting. In fighting for his God everyone, in fact, fights only for the interest of his own vanity, which, of all the passions produced bye the mal-organization of society, is the quickest to take offense, and the most capable of committing the greatest follies.

Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.

As belief is a passion of the mind, no degree of criminality is attachable to disbelief.