It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.

It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us

Many men of genius must arise before a particular man of genius can appear.

Literature is an avenue to glory, ever open for those ingenious men who are deprived of honours or of wealth.

But, indeed, we prefer books to pounds; and we love manuscripts better than florins; and we prefer small pamphlets to war horses.

The defects of great men are the consolation of the dunces.