In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed.
It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.
It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.
It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.
Man's real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.
Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.
Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.
Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.
Stupidity is a talent for misconception.
That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.
That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful.
The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?
The death of a beautiful woman, is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.
The generous Critic fann'd the Poet's fire, And taught the world with reason to admire.
The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true.
The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.
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