I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both.

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.

Even Holland and Spain have been positively, though not relatively, advancing.

A vice sanctioned by the general opinion is merely a vice. The evil terminates in itself. A vice condemned by the general opinion produces a pernicious effect on the whole character. The former is a local malady; the latter, constitutional taint. When the reputation of the offender is lost, he too often flings the remainder of his virtue after it in despair.

In truth it may be laid down as an almost universal rule that good poets are bad critics.

The history of nations, in the sense in which I use the word, is often best studied in works not professedly historical.

I am always nearest to myself," says the Latin proverb.