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.

There can be no situation in life in which the conversation of my dear sister will not administer some comfort to me.

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.

I have often observ'd the loudest Laughers to be the dullest Fellows in the Company.

Take back the beauty and wit you bestow upon me; leave me my own mediocrity of agreeableness and genius, but leave me also my sincerity, my constancy, and my plain dealing; 'Tis all I have to recommend me to the esteem either of others or myself.

True knowledge consists in knowing things, not words.