The literature of a people must spring from the sense of its nationality; and nationality is impossible without self-respect, and self-respect is impossible without liberty.—Mrs. Stowe.
Cleverness is a sort of genius for instrumentality. It is the brain of the hand. In literature, cleverness is more frequently accompanied by wit, genius, and sense, than by humor.—Coleridge.
When literature is the sole business of life, it becomes a drudgery. When we are able to resort to it only at certain hours, it is a charming relaxation. In my earlier days I was a banker's clerk, obliged to be at the desk everyday from ten till five o'clock; and I shall never forget the delight with which, on returning home, I used to read and write during the evening.—Rogers.
Literary history is the great morgue where all seek the dead ones whom they love, or to whom they are related.—Heinrich Heine.
Whatever the skill of any country be in sciences, it is from excellence in polite learning alone that it must expect a character from posterity.—Goldsmith.
Logic.—Logic differeth from rhetoric as the fist from the palm; the one close, the other at large.—Bacon.
Syllogism is of necessary use, even to the lovers of truth, to show them the fallacies that are often concealed in florid, witty, or involved discourses.—Locke.
Logic is the art of convincing us of some truth.—Bruyère.
Love.—Fie, fie! how wayward is this foolish love, that, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse, and presently, all humbled, will kiss the rod!—Shakespeare.
Love is the cross and passion of the heart; its end, its errand.—P. L. Bailey.