We may have uneasy feelings for seeing a creature in distress without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.

I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.

Sir, what is poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is; but it is not easy to tell what it is.

It may be no less dangerous to claim, on certain occasions, too little than too much. There is something captivating in spirit and intrepidity, to which we often yield as to a resistless power; nor can we often yield as to a resistless power; nor can he reasonably expect the confidence of others who too apparently distrusts himself.

Beauty, without kindness, dies unenjoyed and undelighting.

The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay.