Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember.

...learn from my miseries, and do not seek to increase your own.

It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn.

We never do what we wish when we wish it, and when we desire a thing earnestly, and it does arrive, that or we are changed, so that we slide from the summit of our wishes and find ourselves where we were.

I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.

It may...be judged indecent in me to come forward on this occasion; but when I see a fellow-creature about to perish through the cowardice of her pretended friends, I wish to be allowed to speak, that I may say what I know of her character.

I am not a person of opinions because I feel the counter arguments too strongly.