Repentance is no other than a recanting of the will, and opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please.

Happiness involves working toward meaningful goals.

What a wonderful thing it is that drop of seed, from which we are produced, bears in itself the impressions, not only of the bodily shape, but of the thoughts and inclinations of our fathers!

What am I to choose? "Choose what you please, as long as you choose." There you have a foolish answer, which seems to be the outcome, however, of all Dogmatism, which will not allow us to be ignorant of that which we are ignorant.

There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.

Why did I love her? Because it was her; because it was me.

Peoples nurtured on freedom and self-government judge any other form of polity to be deformed and unnatural. Those who are used to monarchy do the same .