Nothing is so useless as a general maxim.

As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.

It has often been found that profuse expenditures, heavy taxation, absurd commercial restrictions, corrupt tribunals, disastrous wars, seditions, persecutions, conflagrations, inundation, have not been able to destroy capital so fast as the exertions of private citizens have been able to create it.

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

The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to him little.

Cut off my head, and singular I am, Cut off my tail, and plural I appear; Although my middle's left, there's nothing there! What is my head cut off? A sounding sea; What is my tail cut off? A rushing river; And in their mingling depths I fearless play, Parent of sweetest sounds, yet mute forever.

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