Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in w...hich they are more ambitious to excel.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This we take it is the grand characteristic of our age. By our skill in Mechanism, it has come to pass, that in the management of ...external things we excel all other ages; while in whatever respects the pure moral nature, in true dignity of soul and character, we are perhaps inferior to most civilised ages.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sculpture and painting are very justly called liberal arts; a lively and strong imagination, together with a just observation, bei...ng absolutely necessary to excel in either; which, in my opinion, is by no means the case of music, though called a liberal art, and now in Italy placed even above the other two--a proof of the decline of that country.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
But what we gain'd in Skill we lost in Strength. Our Builders were with Want of Genius curst;... The second Temple was not like the first; Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length, Our Beauties equal, but excel our Strength.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When first my lines of heavenly joys made mention, Such was their luster, they did so excel,... That I sought out quaint words and trim invention; My thoughts began to burnish, sprout, and swell, Curling with metaphors a plain intention, Decking the sense as if it were to sell.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain! Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,... Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age! Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct, And all her various objects of delight Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased. Inferior to the vilest now become Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me, They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong, Within doors, or without, still as a fool, In power of others, never in my own; Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
...these little girls spoke of going to one school or the other later on, of perhaps they would decide not to practice their music... that day, or see if they could put off their dancing lesson till another hour. Things seemed to happen with them, sometimes one way, sometimes another, while with me there was a definite aim, and things just had to happen at a certain time. My one aim was to do a thing well, and to excel if possible. This outside life, where things seemed to go on without apparent necessity, held me in thrall.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »