1821 · Skopia

De Quincey gives the pleasures of opium first and the pains after, in prose that turns a habit into visionary autobiography. Drug writing from Baudelaire to Burroughs still works his seam.

★ 5.6

A great chess-player is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it. No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness.

William Hazlitt

1821

★ 4.3

Magazine · Autobiography and memoir

Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium.

Thomas De Quincey

London Magazine · 1821

★ 3.8

Poem

Love and marriage rarely can combine, Although they both are born in the same clime; Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine— A sad, sour, sober beverage—by time Is sharpen'd from its high celestial flavour, Down to a very homely household savour.

Lord Byron

Don Juan · 1821

★ 3.7

Poem

She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

1821

★ 3.7

Magazine · Autobiography and memoir

A duller spectacle this earth of ours has not to show than a rainy Sunday in London.

Thomas De Quincey

London Magazine · 1821

★ 3.7

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their will, and lives only by their will.

John Marshall

Cohens v. Virginia · 1821

★ 3.6

Poem

A steady patriot of the world alone, The friend of every country but his own.

George Canning

1821

★ 3.5

Danger is a good teacher, and makes apt scholars. So are disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn, and laughter.

William Hazlitt

The Indian Jugglers · 1821

★ 3.5

Speech · Political speech

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

John Quincy Adams

1821

★ 3.5

He who does not know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

1821

★ 2.1

Poem

In her first passion woman loves her lover, In all the others all she loves is love.

Lord Byron

Don Juan · 1821

★ 2.1

Personal journal

The best of Prophets of the future is the Past.

Lord Byron

1821

★ 2.1

Speech · Political speech

In our whole system, national and State, we have shunned all the defects which unceasingly preyed on the vitals and destroyed the ancient Republics.

James Monroe

Second Inaugural Address of James Monroe · 1821

★ 2.1

Poem

The isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace, Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung! Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all, except their sun, is set.

Lord Byron

Don Juan · 1821

★ 2.0

Letter

And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. In short, the flames kindled on the fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to John Adams, 1821 · 1821

★ 2.0

Speech · Political speech

There is every reason to believe that our system will soon attain the highest degree of perfection of which human institutions are capable, and that the movement in all its branches will exhibit such a degree of order and harmony as to command the admiration and respect of the civilized world.

James Monroe

Second Inaugural Address of James Monroe · 1821

★ 2.0

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