Tragedy is always a mistake; and the loneliness of the deepest thinker, the widest lover, ceases to be pathetic to us so soon as the sun is high enough above the mountains.
The use of criticism, in periodical writing, is to sift, not to stamp a work.
It is not because the touch of genius has roused genius to production, but because the admiration of genius has made talent ambitious, that the harvest is still so abundant.
Genius will live and thrive without training, but it does not the less reward the watering-pot and pruning-knife.
For precocity some great price is always demanded sooner or later in life.
Essays, entitled critical, are epistles addressed to the public, through which the mind of the recluse relieves itself of its impressions.
A man who means to think and write a great deal must, after six and twenty, learn to read with his fingers.