Shakespeare is one of the best means of culture the world possesses. Whoever is at home in his pages is at home everywhere.—H. N. Hudson.
His imperial muse tosses the creation like a bauble from hand to hand to embody any capricious thought that is uppermost in her mind. The remotest spaces of nature are visited, and the farthest sundered things are brought together by a subtle spiritual connection.—Emerson.
I think most readers of Shakespeare sometimes find themselves thrown into exalted mental conditions like those produced by music.—O. W. Holmes.
Whatever other learning he wanted he was master of two books unknown to many profound readers, though books which the last conflagration can alone destroy. I mean the book of Nature and of Man.—Young.
If ever Shakespeare rants, it is not when his imagination is hurrying him along, but when he is hurrying his imagination along.—Macaulay.
It was said of Euripides, that every verse was a precept; and it may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence.—Johnson.
The genius of Shakespeare was an innate university.—Keats.
Shame.—Nature's hasty conscience.—Maria Edgeworth.
Mortifications are often more painful than real calamities.—Goldsmith.
Ship.—A prison with the chance of being drowned.—Johnson.