Thomas

“The critic does his utmost to blight genius in his infancy.”
― Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey

“And as for the human mind, I deny that it is the same in all men.  I hold that there is every variety of natural capacity from the idiot to Newton and Shakespeare; the mass of mankind, midway between these extremes, being blockheads of different degrees; education leaving them pretty nearly as it found them, with this single difference, that it gives a fixed direction to their stupidity, a sort of incurable wry neck to the thing they call their understanding. ”
― Thomas Love Peacock, The Collected Works of Thomas Love Peacock: PergamonMedia

“Now I should rather suppose there is no reason for it: it is the fashion to be unhappy. To have a reason for being so would be exceedingly commonplace: to be so without any is the province of genius.”
― Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey

“When Scythrop grew up, he was sent, as usual, to a public school, where a little learning was painfully beaten into him, and from thence to the university, where it was carefully taken out of him; and he was sent home like a well-threshed ear of corn, with nothing in his head.”
― Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey