The pretty fellows you speak of, I own entertain me sometimes, but is it impossible to be diverted with what one despises? I can laugh at a puppet show, at the same time I know there is nothing in it worth my attention or regard.

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.

Let this great maxim be my virtue's guide,- In part she is to blame that has been tried: He comes too near that comes to be denied.

It goes far towards reconciling me to being a woman, when I reflect that I am thus in no danger of ever marrying one.

General notions are generally wrong.

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.

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.