We are not satisfied to be right, unless we can prove others to be quite wrong.

The essence of poetry is will and passion.

A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. It not only gives us fortitude to bear pain, but teaches us at every step the precarious tenure on which we hold our present being.

Persons of slender intellectual stamina dread competition, as dwarfs are afraid of being run over in the street.

The vices are never so well employed as in combating one another.

He who lives wisely to himself and his own heart looks at the busy world through the loopholes of retreat, and does not want to mingle in the fray.

Men of the greatest genius are not always the most prodigal of their encomiums. But then it is when their range of power is confined, and they have in fact little perception, except of their own particular kind of excellence.