The habitude of pleasing by flattery makes a language soft; the fear of offending by truth makes it circuitous and conventional

George the First was always reckoned / Vile, but viler George the Second; / And what mortal ever heard / Any good of George the Third? / When from earth the Fourth descended/ God be praised, the Georges ended!

Child of a day, thou knowest not / The tears that overflow thy urn.

Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale, / No man hath walked along our roads with step / So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue/ So varied in discourse.

We talk on principle, but we act on interest

We are no longer happy as soon as we wish to be happier.

I strove with none; for none was worth my strife; Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art; I warmed both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart

I loved him not; and yet now he is gone / I feel I am alone.

There are no fields of amaranth on this side of the grave: there are no voices, O Rhodope! that are not soon mute, however tuneful: there is no name, with whatever emphasis of passionate love repeated, of which the echo is not faint at last.