“Imagining is in itself the very height and life of poetry, which, by a kind of enthusiasm or extraordinary emotion of the soul, makes it seem to us that we behold those things which the poet paints.”

Old as I am, for ladies’ love unfit, The power of beauty I remember yet.

For your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.

All, as they say, that glitters is not gold.

The conscience of a people is their power.

Beware the fury of a patient man.

A woman’s counsel brought us first to woe, And made her man his paradise forego, Where at heart’s ease he liv’d; and might have been As free from sorrow as he was from sin.

We can never be grieved for their miseries who are thoroughly wicked, and have thereby justly called their calamities on themselves.

Great souls forgive not injuries till time has put their enemies within their power, that they may show forgiveness is their own.

None would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; And, from the dregs of life, think to receive, What the first sprightly running could not give.

Pity melts the mind to love.

They think too little who talk too much.

Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries, See the Furies arise!

Every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies.

Men’s virtues I have commended as freely as I have taxed their crimes.

And love’s the noblest frailty of the mind.

At home the hateful names of parties cease, And factious souls are wearied into peace.

Undervaluations caused by neglect or prejudice may persist for an inconveniently long time, and the same applies to inflated prices caused by over-enthusiasm or artificial stimulants.

Martyrdom was the price of enthusiasm for acting.

Enthusiasm is the electric current that keeps the engine of life going at top speed. Enthusiasm is the very propeller of progress.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. For what is enthusiasm but the oblivion and swallowing-up of self in an object dearer than self?

The fellow who isn’t fired with enthusiasm is apt to be fired.

Nothing dispels enthusiasm like a small admission fee.

Speeches made to the people are essential to the arousing of enthusiasm for a war.

I’ve survived quite a few generations. That’s because I never lost my enthusiasm. I wake up every morning like on Christmas Day, waiting for the gifts.