Anna Seward

“The page of history teems with the foulest blot upon the name and nature of humanity - persecution for conscience sake.”

“Alas! that the torn heart can bleed, and live.”

“Genius is the very eye of intellect and the wing of thought; it is always in advance of its time.”

“Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.”

“The eye of genius has always a slight suffusion of madness.”

“Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away.”

“It is for the happiness of mankind that we are constituted as we are.”

“A long-established forest is a history of the district where it stands.”

“Genius soars, but taste parades.”

“Vain is the hope to restrain prices by laws, where monopoly is tolerated.”

“Sorrow is the great idealizer.”

“The days of our youth are the days of our glory.”

“The present moment is a powerful deity.”

“Strive for excellence, not perfection.”

“It is for the happiness of mankind that men are sometimes cheated.”

“Poetry is the language of a state of crisis.”

“Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet, To think how monie counsels sweet, How monie lengthened sage advices, The husband frae the wife despises!”

“The cold and barren TASTE of the present day has excluded all the richer ornaments of writing.”