It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.
Candour is the brightest gem of criticism.
A work, however, should be judged by its design and its execution, and not by any preconceived notion of what it ought to be according to the critic, rather than the author.
After the golden age of Latinity, we gradually slide into the silver, and at length precipitately descend into the iron.
There is such a thing as literary fashion, and prose and verse have been regulated by the same caprice that cuts our coats and cocks our hats.
The art of meditation may be exercised at all hours, and in all places, and men of genius, in their walks, at table, and amidst assemblies, turning the eye of the the mind upwards, can form an artificial solitude; retired amidst a crowd, calm amidst distraction, and wise amidst folly.
Style! style! why, all writers will tell you that it is the very thing which can least of all be changed. A man’s style is nearly as much a part of him as his physiognomy, his figure, the throbbing of this pulse, – in short, as any part of his being is at least subjected to the action of the will.
Quotation, like much better things, has its abuses. One may quote till one compiles. The ancient lawyers used to quote at the bar till they had stagnated their own cause.
Fortune has rarely condescended to be the companion of genius.
Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit which hovers over the production of genius.
A learned historian declared to me of a contemporary, that the latter had appropriated his researches; he might, indeed, and he had a right to refer to the same originals; but if his predecessor had opened the sources for him, gratitude is not a silent virtue.
A poet is a painter of the soul.
But, indeed, we prefer books to pounds; and we love manuscripts better than florins; and we prefer small pamphlets to war horses.
The great man who thinks greatly of himself, is not diminishing that greatness in heaping fuel on his fire.
A nickname a man may chance to wear out; but a system of calumnity, pursued by a faction, may descend even to posterity. This principal has taken full effect on this state favorite.
Those who do not read criticism will rarely merit to be criticised.
The most noble criticism is that in which the critic is not the antagonist so much as the rival of the author.
Many men of genius must arise before a particular man of genius can appear.
Happy the man when he has not the defects of his qualities.
Time the great destroyer of other men’s happiness, only enlarges the patrimony of literature to its possessor.
After all, it is style alone by which posterity will judge of a great work, for an author can have nothing truly his own but his style.