There is power in ambition, pleasure in luxury...but envy can gain nothing but vexation.

The most useful and honorable science and occupation for a woman is the science of housekeeping. I know some that are miserly, very few that are good managers.

Men throw themselves on foreign assistances to spare their own, which, after all, are the only certain and sufficient ones.

What harm cause not those huge draughts or pictures which wanton youth with chalk or coals draw in each passage, wall or stairs of our great houses, whence a cruel contempt of our natural store is bred in them?

Tis well for old age that it is always accompanied with want of perception, ignorance, and a facility of being deceived. For should we see how we are used and would not acquiesce, what would become of us?

All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.

We cannot do without it, and yet we disgrace and vilify the same. It may be compared to a cage, the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair to get out.