Play out the game, act well your part, and if the gods have blundered, we will not.

It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being. They come to serve his actual wants, never to please his fancy.

Thought is the property of him who can entertain it, and of him who can adequately place it.

What has been done in the world - the works of genius - cost nothing. There is no painful effort, but it is the spontaneous flowing of the thought. Shakespeare made his Hamlet as a bird weaves its nest.

I will not hide my tastes or aversions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own.

Be lord of a day, through wisdom and justice, and you can put up your history books.

Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection.