Of all failures, to fail in a witticism is the worst, and the mishap is the more calamitous in a drawn-out and detailed one

Harmonious words render ordinary ideas acceptable; less ordinary, pleasant; novel and ingenious ones, delightful. As pictures and statues, and living beauty, too, show better by music-light, so is poetry irradiated, vivified, glorified', and raised into immortal life by harmony.

Fame, they tell you, is air; but without air there is no life for any; without fame there is none for the best.

He who first praises a book becomingly is next in merit to the author.

Democracy is always the work of kings. Ashes, which in themselves are sterile, fertilize the land they are cast upon.

It appears to be among the laws of nature, that the mighty of intellect should be pursued and carped by the little, as the solitary flight of one great bird is followed by the twittering petulance of many smaller.

Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.