This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.
Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he isn't. A sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is.
The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.
Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony.
Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations.
How well Shakespeare knew how to improve and exalt little circumstances, when he borrowed them from circumstantial or vulgar historians.
I do not admire politicians; but when they are excellent in their way, one cannot help allowing them their due.
I avoid talking before the youth of the age as I would dancing before them: for if one's tongue don't move in the steps of the day, and thinks to please by its old graces, it is only an object of ridicule.