Famous quotes containing the words period and/or poet:
“After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Mr. [Christopher] Smart the poet was here yesterday.... This ingenious writer is one of the most unfortunate of men—he has been twice confined in a mad house.... How great a pity so clever, so ingenious a man should be reduced to such shocking circumstances. He is extremely grave, and has still great wildness in his manner, looks and voice—’tis impossible to see him and to think of his works, without feeling the utmost pity and concern for him.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)