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.

It is not possible to be regarded with tenderness, except by a few. That merit which gives greatness and renown diffuses its influence to a wide compass, but acts weakly on every single breast; it is placed at a distance from common spectators, and shines like one of the remote stars, of which the light reaches us, but not the heat.

The liberty of using harmless pleasure will not be disputed; but it is still to be examined what pleasures are harmless.

Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.

Words become low by the occasions to which they are applied, or the general character of them who use them; and the disgust which they produce arises from the revival of those images with which they are commonly united.

All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future, which has not been given us.

Deviation from Nature is deviation from happiness.