“The history of any private family, however humble, could it be fully related for five or six generations, would illustrate the state and progress of society better than the most elaborate dissertation.”

Arguing that ordinary family lives can illuminate social history more vividly than abstraction · Prose, The Doctor

• Family
• History
• Society

“Great poets have no envy; little ones are full of it. I doubt whether any man ever criticised a good poem maliciously, unless he had written a bad one himself.”

Linking generous criticism with confidence in one’s own art · Letter to Walter Scott, 22 April 1808

• Character
• Criticism
• Poetry

“A fastidious taste is like a squeamish appetite; the one has its origin in some disease of the mind, as the other has in some ailment of the stomach.”

Using comic analogy to question excessive refinement of taste · Prose, The Doctor

• Criticism
• Humour
• Mind