I am afraid we are little better than straws upon the water; we may flatter ourselves that we swim, when the current carries us along.

people never write calmly but when they write indifferently.

I despise the pleasure of pleasing people that I despise.

Lord Bacon makes beauty to consist of grace and motion.

The use of knowledge in our sex (beside the amusement of solitude) is to moderate the passions and learn to be contented with a small expense, which are the certain effects of a studious life and, it may be, preferable even to that fame which men have engrossed to themselves and will not suffer us to share.

General notions are generally wrong.

We travellers are in very hard circumstances. If we say nothing but what has been said before us, we are dull and have observed nothing. If we tell anything new, we are laughed at as fabulous and romantic.