Great minds do indeed react on the society which has made them what they are; but they only pay with interest what they have received.

He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child.

There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the community may be quite competent to protect the persons and property of the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, or to superintend our private habits.

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.

The ascendency of the sacerdotal order was long the ascendency which naturally and properly belonged to intellectual superiority.

The business of the dramatist is to keep himself out of sight, and to let nothing appear but his characters. As soon as he attracts notice to his personal feelings, the illusion is broken.

The Church is the handmaid of tyranny and the steady enemy of liberty.