There is no quality so contrary to any nature which one cannot affect, and put on upon occasion, in order to serve an interest.

Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.

I forget whether advice be among the lost things which Ariosto says are to be found in the moon: that and time ought to have been there.

The system of morality to be gathered from the ancient sages falls very short of that delivered in the gospel.

Real vision is the ability to see the invisible.

Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them; as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.

I hope you will be ready to own publicly, whenever you shall be called to it, that by your great and frequent urgency you prevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect account of my travels, with directions to hire some young gentleman of either university to put them in order, and correct the style, as my cousin Dampier did, by my advice, in his book called "A Voyage round the world."