Towering is the confidence of twenty-one.

Example is always more efficacious than precept.

We ought not to raise expectations which it is not in our power to satisfy.-It is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke.

There is ... scarcely any species of writing of which we can tell what is its essence, and what are its constituents; every new genius produces some innovation, which, when invented and approved, subverts the rules which the practice of foregoing authors had established.

You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not - silence is the sharper sword.

Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus; and a writer naturally pleases himself with a performance which owes nothing to the subject.

We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.