As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.

No man who is correctly informed as to the past will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.

Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are commonly found together. Obscurity and affectation are the two greatest faults of style. Obscurity of expression generally springs from confusion of ideas; and the same wish to dazzle, at any cost, which produces affectation in the manner of a writer, is likely to produce sophistry in his reasonings.

The desire of posthumous fame and the dread of posthumous reproach and execration are feelings from the influence of which scarcely any man is perfectly free, and which in many men are powerful and constant motives of action.

History begins in novel and ends in essay.

[I can] scarcely write upon mathematics or mathematicians. Oh for words to express my abomination of the science.

We must succumb to the general influence of the times. No man can be of the tenth century, if he would; be must be a man of the nineteenth century.