Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet. From those sounds which we hear on small or on coarse occasions, we do not easily receive strong impressions, or delightful images; and words to which we are nearly strangers, whenever they occur, draw that attention on themselves which they should transmit to other things.

Scarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable but by a departure from his real character, and an attempt at something for which nature or education has left him unqualified.

Extended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.

The future is purchased by the present.

Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired.... Do not suffer life to stagnate; it will grow muddy for want of motion: commit yourself again to the current of the world.

..to write and to live are very different. Many who praise virtue, do no more than praise it.

There ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.