21 quotes found
Writer · British
British writer
“Beware of the man of one book.”
“Candour is the brightest gem of criticism.”
“Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.”
“Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.”
“The defects of great men are the consolation of the dunces.”
“Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.”
“There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.”
“The delights of reading impart the vivacity of youth even to old age.”
“The delight of opening a new pursuit, or a new course of reading, imparts the vivacity and novelty of youth even to old age.”
“The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation.”
“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.”
“Whenever we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, an opening quotation is a symphony preluding on the chords those tones we are about to harmonize.”
“If the golden gate of preferment is not usually opened to men of real merit, persons of no worth have entered it in a most extraordinary manner.”
“To bend and prostrate oneself to express sentiments of respect, appears to be a natural motion.”
“The negroes are lovers of ludicrous actions, and hence all their ceremonies seem farcical.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The poet and the painter are only truly great by the mutual influences of their studies, and the jealousy of glory has only produced an idle contest.”
“Theories of genius are the peculiar constructions of our own philosophical times; ages of genius had passed away, and they left no other record than their works; no preconcerted theory described th...”
