Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.

As freedom is the only safeguard of governments, so are order and moderation generally necessary to preserve freedom.

In after-life you may have friends--fond, dear friends; but never will you have again the inexpressible love and gentleness lavished upon you which none but a mother bestows.

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.

Generalization is necessary to the advancement of knowledge; but particularly is indispensable to the creations of the imagination. In proportion as men know more and think more they look less at individuals and more at classes. They therefore make better theories and worse poems.

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

Scotland by no means escaped the fate ordained for every country which is connected, but not incorporated, with another country of greater resources.