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

Only imagine a man acting for one single day on the supposition that all his neighbors believe all that they profess, and act up to all that they believe!

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Both in individuals and in masses violent excitement is always followed by remission, and often by reaction. We are all inclined to depreciate whatever we have overpraised, and, on the other hand, to show undue indulgence where we have shown undue rigor.

A few more years will destroy whatever yet remains of that magical potency which once belonged to the name of Byron.

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.

The passages in which Milton has alluded to his own circumstances are perhaps read more frequently, and with more interest, than any other lines in his poems.