Women ought to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of government.

Love, from its very nature, must be transitory.

I think I love most people best when they are in adversity; for pity is one of my prevailing passions.

Perhaps the seeds of false-refinement, immorality, and vanity, have ever been shed by the great. Weak, artificial beings, raised above the common wants and defections of their race, in a premature and unnatural manner, undermine the very foundation of virtue, and spread corruption through the whole mass of society!

Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship.

Executions, far from being useful examples to the survivors, have, I am persuaded, a quite contrary effect, by hardening the heart they ought to terrify. Besides, the fear of an ignominious death, I believe, never deterred anyone from the commission of a crime, because in committing it the mind is roused to activity about present circumstances.

Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.