commendable quotes

Shakespeare†was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them, not laboriously, but luckily; when he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there† He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great.

-John Dryden
  An Essay of Dramatic Poesy,'Shakespeare and Ben  Jonson Compared'.

Formosa facies muta commendatio est. A beautiful face is a dumb commendation.

-Publilius Syrus   1c
Sententiae.