Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.

Thought is the seed of action; but action is as much its second form as thought is its first.

I have been told by persons of experience in matters of taste, that the fashions follow a law of gradation, and are never arbitrary. The new mode is always only a step onward in the same direction as the last mode; and a cultivated eye is prepared for and predicts the new fashion.

Be as beneficent as the sun or the sea, but if your rights as a rational being are trenched on, die on the first inch of your territory.

What we love that we have, but by desire we bereave ourselves of the love.

Sanity is very rare; every man almost and every woman has a dash of madness.

And dazzling memory revive.Refresh the faded tints, Recut the aged prints, And write my old adventures, with the pen Which, on the first day, drew Upon the tablets blue The dancing Pleiads, and the eternal men.