Modesty is the graceful, calm virtue of maturity; bashfulness the charm of vivacious youth.

Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave?

It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.

Love from its very nature must be transitory. To seek for a secret that would render it constant would be as wild a search as for the philosopher’s stone or the grand panacea: and the discovery would be equally useless, or rather pernicious to mankind. The most holy band of society is friendship.

People thinking for themselves have more energy in their voice, than any government, which it is possible for human wisdom to invent; and every government not aware of this sacred truth will, at some period, be suddenly overturned.

[I]f we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex.

Women do not want power over men, they want power over themselves.