Where virtue is, sensibility is the ornament and becoming attire of virtue. On certain occasions it may almost be said to become virtue. But sensibility and all the amiable qualities may likewise become, and too often have become, the panders of vice and the instruments of seduction.

To most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which illuminate only the track it has passed.

Heart-chilling superstition! thou canst glaze even Pity's eye with her own frozen tear.

The spirit of poetry, like all other living powers, must of necessity circumscribe itself by rules, were it only to unite power with beauty.

For I often please myself with the fancy, now that I may have saved from oblivion the only striking passage in a whole volume, and now that I may have attracted notice to a writer undeservedly forgotten.

The form of truth will bear exposure, as well as that of beauty herself.

Swans sing before they die - 'twere no bad thing should certain persons die before they sing.