Little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every man could conform to the right as soon as he was shown it.

Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise.

When any fit of gloominess, or perversion of mind, lays hold upon you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaints, but exert your whole care to hide it; by endeavouring to hide it; you will dry it away. Be always busy.

The imaginations excited by the view of an unknown and untravelled wilderness are not such as arise in the artificial solitude of parks and gardens... The phantoms which haunt a desert are want, and misery, and danger; the evils of dereliction rush upon the thoughts; man is made unwillingly acquainted with his own weakness, and meditation shows him only how little he can sustain, and how little he can perform.

Every human being whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge.

A person loves to review his own mind. That is the use of a diary, or journal.

Nothing has tended more to retard the advancement of science than the disposition in vulgar minds to vilify what they cannot comprehend.