Critics, Like The Rest Of Mankind, Are

It Would Add Much To Human Happiness, If An Art Could Be Taught Of Forgetting All Of Which The Remembrance Is At Once Useless And Afflictive, That The Mind Might Perform Its Functions Without Encumbrance, And The Past Might No Longer Encroach Upon The Present.

Just Praise Is Only A Debt, But Flattery Is A Present. The Acknowledgment Of Those Virtues On Which Conscience Congratulates Us Is A Tribute That We Can At Any Tine Exact With Confidence; But The Celebration Of Those Which We Only Feign, Or Desire Without Any Vigorous Endeavours To Attain Them, Is Received As A Confession Of Sovereignty Over Regions Never Conquered, As A Favourable Decision Of Disputable Claims, And Is More Welcome As More Gratuitous.

The Mind Is Never Satisfied With The Objects Immediately Before It, But Is Always Breaking Away From The Present Moment, And Losing Itself In Schemes Of Future Felicity... The Natural Flights Of The Human Mind Are Not From Pleasure To Pleasure, But From Hope To Hope.

In Sovereignty There Are No Gradations.

Fear Is Implanted In Us As A Preservative From Evil.