The whole body of the arts and sciences composes one vast machinery for the irritation and development of the human intellect.

A promise is binding in the inverse ratio of the numbers to whom it is made.

Under our present enormous accumulation of books, I do affirm that a most miserable distraction of choice must be very generally incident to the times; that the symptoms of it are in fact very prevalent, and that one of the chief symptoms is an enormous 'gluttonism' for books.

The pulpit style of Germany has been always rustically negligent, or bristling with pedantry.

Out of the ruined lodge and forgotten mansion, bowers that are trodden under foot, and pleasure-houses that are dust, the poet calls up a palingenesis.

Enough if every age produce two or three critics of this esoteric class, with here and there a reader to understand them.

It is most absurdly said, in popular language, of any man, that he is disguised in liquor; for, on the contrary, most men are disguised by sobriety.