“Learning is pedantry, wit, impertinence, virtue itself looked like weakness, and the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice”

“An opera may be allowed to be extravagantly lavish in its decorations, as its only design is to gratify the senses and keep up an indolent attention in the audience”

“Tradition is an important help to history, but its statements should be carefully scrutinized before we rely on them”

“We don't understand life any better at forty than at twenty, but we know it and admit it”

“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius”

““The course of true love never did run smooth.”