When young people are too rigidly sequestered from [the world], their lively and romantic imaginations paint it to them as a paradise of which they have been beguiled; but when they are shown it properly, and in due time, they see it such as it really is, equally shared by pain and pleasure, hope and disappointment.

Travelling is the ruin of all happiness. There's no looking at a building here after seeing Italy.

There's no nation under the sun can beat the English for ill-politeness: for my part, I hate the very sight of them; and so I shall only just visit a person of quality or two of my particular acquaintance, and then I shall go back again to France.

Wealth per se I never too much valued, and my acquaintance with its possessors has by no means increased my veneration for it.

The Spring is generally fertile in new acquaintances.

A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that, is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.

How little has situation to do with happiness.