The effective strength of sects is not to be ascertained merely by counting heads.

How well Horatius kept the bridge In the brave days of old.

A page digested is better than a volume hurriedly read.

In taste and imagination, in the graces of style, in the arts of persuasion, in the magnificence of public works, the ancients were at least our equals.

As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.

Those who seem to load the public taste are, in general, merely outrunning it in the direction which it is spontaneously pursuing.

No particular man is necessary to the state. We may depend on it that, if we provide the country with popular institutions, those institutions will provide it with great men.