He that has once concluded it lawful to resist power, when it wants merit, will soon find a want of merit, to justify his resistance to power.

In a man's letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you discover actions in their motives.

Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise.

A quibble is to Shakespeare what luminous vapours are to the traveller: he follows it at all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way and sure to engulf him in the mire.

This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.

...it will not always happen that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labor.

Men hate more steadily than they love.