Newspapers ... chronicle, with degrading avidity, the sins of the second-rate, and with the conscientiousness of the illiterate give us accurate and prosaic details of the doings of people of absolutely no interest whatsoever. The Critic as Artist

“To judge between good or bad, between successful and unsuccessful would take the eye of a God.” The Cherry Orchard

The exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or pleasure or pain, which are measured like coins, the greater with the less, is not the exchange of virtue. O, my dear Simmias, is there not one true coin, for which all things ought to exchange?—and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage or temperance or justice. ...in the true exchange, there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself are a purgation of them. The Trials Of Socrates

No profit whatever can possibly be made but at the expense of another. . . . The Merchant only thrives, and grows rich, by the pride, wantonness and debauchery of youth; the husbandman by the price and scarcity of grain; the architect by the ruin of buildings; lawyers, and officers of Justice, by the suits and contentions of men; nay even the honor and office of Divines are derived from our death and vices. A physician takes no pleasure in the health even of his friends . . . nor a soldier in the peace of his country and so of the rest. Essays