Every man has a lurking wish to appear considerable in his native place.

Political liberty is only good insofar as it produces private liberty.

Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove The pangs of guilty power and hapless love! Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more; Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before; Sleep undisturb'd within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!

If in an actor there appears an utter vacancy of meaning, a frigid equality, a stupid languor, a torpid apathy, the greatest kindness that can be shown him is a speedy sentence of expulsion.

This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.

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.

The purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism which would destroy the power of pleasing must be blown aside