Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward; it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the good and beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.

We ought not to extract pernicious honey from poison blossoms of misrepresentation and mendacious half-truth, to pamper the course appetite of bigotry and self-love.

Enlist the interests of stern Morality and religious Enthusiasm in the cause of Political Liberty, as in the time of the old Puritans, and it will be irresistible.

Remorse weeps tears of blood.

Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends.

Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.

The first class of readers may be compared to an hour-glass, their reading being as the sand; it runs in and runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second class resembles a sponge, which imbibes everything, and returns it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtier. A third class is like a jelly-bag, which allows all that is pure to pass away, and retains only the refuse and dregs. The fourth class may be compared to the slave of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gems.