They who most loudly clamour for liberty do not most liberally grant it.

The friendship which is to be practised or expected by common mortals, must take its rise from mutual pleasure, and must end when the power ceases of delighting each other.

No man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned himself

The business of a poet is to examine not the individual but the species; to remark general properties and large appearances.

Works of imagination excel by their allurement and delight; by their power of attracting and detaining the attention. That book is good in vain which the reader throws away. He only is the master who keeps the mind in pleasing captivity; whose pages are perused with eagerness, and in hope of new pleasure are perused again; and whose conclusion is perceived with an eye of sorrow, such as the traveller casts upon departing day.

The equity of Providence has balanced peculiar sufferings with peculiar enjoyments.

No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.