All the walks of literature are infested with mendicants for fame, who attempt to excite our interest by exhibiting all the distortions of their intellects and stripping the covering from all the putrid sores of their feelings.

Grief, which disposes gentle natures to retirement, to inaction, and to meditation, only makes restless spirits more restless.

More sinners are cursed at not because we despise their sins but because we envy their success at sinning.

I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history.

A Grecian history, perfectly written should be a complete record of the rise and progress of poetry, philosophy, and the arts.

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.

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.