Truth

It is wrong in all cases to believe on insufficient evidence.

There it is worse than presumption to believe.

Criticism is to Literature what legislation and government are to States.

Without standards, without touchstones, without principles, without knowledge, it appears to be regarded as the one calling for which no equipment and no training are needed.

They will sit in judgment on books written in languages of whose very alphabets they are ignorant.

They will pose as authorities and pronounce ex cathedrâ on subjects literary, historical, and scientific of which they know nothing more than what they have contrived to pick up from the works which they are "reviewing."

Books displaying in their writers the grossest ignorance of the very rudiments of the subjects treated, and literally swarming with blunders and absurdities, all of which pass undetected and unnoticed, are made the subjects of elaborate panegyrics.

Books, on the other hand, of unusual and distinguished merit are despatched summarily in a few lines of equally undeserved depreciation.

In everything but in criticism it is necessary to specialize.

A man who posed as an authority on all the literatures of the world, and on the history of every nation in the world, would be very justly set down as an impostor.

The two things which never seem to be considered are the interests of Literature and the interests of the public.

A celebrated physician has just come from Janina in Albania. He alone can cure the King and give him back the strength of his youth.

Say yes or no without fear.

I wish you to be attired as befits your rank and beauty.

In this place you may fearlessly stay.

The duty of those who claim to advise you here was to discuss the situation impartially, and to inquire, in an uncontentious spirit, what course is best in your interests.

Are they not all aware, that so long as they thought of the king as their common foe, and were at unity with one another, they were secure in their prosperity?

I can really only thank you for your too flattering letter, inspired by our old friendship.

I have nothing to say about myself, except that I am doing my best, with the feeling that it will never be enough.

Success is certain when all free peoples are in array against the last convulsions of savagery.