I required kindness and sympathy, but I did not believe myself utterly unworthy of it.

If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us.

Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity and ruin.

To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death.

Standing armies can never consist of resolute robust men; they may be well-disciplined machines, but they will seldom contain men under the influence of strong passions, or with very vigorous faculties.

Allow me now to return to the cottagers, whose story excited in me such various feelings of indignation, delight, and wonder, but which all terminated in additional love and reverence for my protectors (for so I loved, in an innocent, half painful self-deceit, to call them).

In my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out with a cry of pain. How strange, I thought that the same cause should produce such opposite effects.