An epithet or metaphor drawn from nature ennobles art; an epithet or metaphor drawn from art degrades nature.

Lectures were once useful; but now when all can read, and books are so numerous, lectures are unnecessary.

Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and far from my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Ionia.

We seldom learn the true want of what we have till it is discovered that we can have no more.

Prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument.

There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.

A transition from an author's book to his conversation is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur, and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.