The traveler may feel assured, he will meet with no difficulties or dangers, excepting in rare cases, nearly so bad as he beforehand anticipates. In a moral point of view, the effect ought to be, to teach him good-humored patience, freedom from selfishness, the habit of acting for himself, and of making the best of every occurrence.

Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but at last it was complete.

...all nature is perverse & will not do as I wish it.

Thus we have given to man a pedigree of prodigious length, but not, it may be said, of noble quality.

It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance.

The formation of different languages and of distinct species and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously parallel.

The main conclusion here arrived at ... is that man is descended from some less highly organized form.