Authors are like cattle going to a fair: those of the same field can never move on without butting one another.

Let me take up your metaphor. Friendship is a vase, which, when it is flawed by heat or violence or accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after. The more graceful and ornamental it was, the more clearly do we discern the hopelessness of restoring it to its former state. Coarse stones, if they are fractured, may be cemented again; precious stones, never.

It is delightful to kiss the eyelashes of the beloved--is it not? But never so delightful as when fresh tears are on them.

Every good writer has much idiom; it is the life and spirit of language.

A smile is ever the most bright and beautiful with a tear upon it. What is the dawn without the dew? The tear is rendered by the smile precious above the smile itself.

We fancy we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we suffer from self-love.

A critic is never too severe when he only detects the faults of an author. But he is worse than too severe when, in consequence of this detection, be presumes to place himself on a level with genius.