“An appeal to a goodness which is not in him is, to a vain and sensitive soul, a stinging insult.”

The Life of Dryden
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)
Context: It is not by comparing line with line, that the merit of great works is to be estimated, but by their general effects and ultimate result. It is easy to note a weak line, and write one more vigorous in its place; to find a happiness of expression in the original, and transplant it by force into the version: but what is given to the parts may be subducted from the whole, and the reader may be weary, though the critick may commend. Works of imagination excel by their allurement and delight; by their power of attracting and detaining the attention. That book is good in vain, which the reader throws away. He only is the master, who keeps the mind in pleasing captivity; whose pages are perused with eagerness, and in hope of new pleasure are perused again; and whose conclusion is perceived with an eye of sorrow, such as the traveller casts upon departing day.

On poetry

Broken Lights Diaries 1957-59.

Original: (it) ​Mia madre, una donna dall'animo dolce, buono, sensibile ed elegante, con un cuore grande. Una donna con personalità, dal carattere forte ed un coraggio che non conosce limiti.
Source: prevale.net

Source: I Served the King of England

De Montfort (1798), Act I, scene 2; in A Series of Plays.

The Revel: Time of the Famine and Plague in India, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Source: Something Wonderful