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.

It is the common error of builders and parents to follow some plan they think beautiful (and perhaps is so) without considering that nothing is beautiful that is misplaced.

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.

There is nothing can pay one for that invaluable ignorance which is the companion of youth, those sanguine groundless hopes, and that lively vanity which makes all the happiness of life.

Making verses is almost as common as taking snuff, and God can tell what miserable stuff people carry about in their pockets, and offer to all their acquaintances, and you know one cannot refuse reading and taking a pinch.

But the fruit that can fall without shaking Indeed is too mellow for me.

How many thousands ... earnestly seeking what they do not want, while they neglect the real blessings in their possession -- I mean the innocent gratification of their senses, which is all we can properly call our own.