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

That what cannot be repaired is not to be regretted.

From ignorance our comfort flows, the only wretched are the wise

Every man has some favorite topic of conversation, on which, by a feigned seriousness of attention, he may be drawn to expatiate without end.

I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.

Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal.

People have now a-days got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do as much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken.