Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time.

I never wanted but your heart--that gone, you have nothing more to give.

The appetites will rule if the mind is vacant.

The highest branch of solitary amusement is reading; but even in the choice of books the fancy is first employed; for in reading, the heart is touched, till its feelings are examined by the understanding, and the ripening of reason regulate the imagination. This is the work of years, and the most important of all employments.

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.

When poverty is more disgraceful than even vice, is not morality cut to the quick?

In the education of women, the cultivation of the understanding is always subordinate to the acquirement of some corporeal accomplishment.