“Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirrour of manners and of life.”

Praising Shakespeare for reflecting enduring human behaviour · Preface to Shakespeare

• Nature
• Poetry
• Truth

“Works of imagination excel by their allurement and delight; by their power of attracting and detaining the attention.”

Making sustained imaginative pleasure a central test of literature · Lives of the Poets, Dryden

• Art
• Beauty

“No people can be great who have ceased to be virtuous.”

Making public greatness dependent on moral character · An Introduction to the Political State of Great Britain

• Politics
• Truth