If the Sunday had not been observed as a day of rest during the last three centuries, I have not the slightest doubt that we should have been at this moment a poorer people and less civilized.

Language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. They advance from particular images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical, that of a half-civilized people is poetical.

Genius is subject to the same laws which regulate the production of cotton and molasses.

Satire is, indeed, the only sort of composition in which the Latin poets whose works have come down to us were not mere imitators of foreign models; and it is therefore the sort of composition in which they have never been excelled.

The chief-justice was rich, quiet, and infamous.

He had done that which could never be forgiven; he was in the grasp of one who never forgave.

The effect of violent dislike between groups has always created an indifference to the welfare and honor of the state.