The little words in the Republic of Letters, like the little folks in a nation, are the most useful and significant.

A man who insults the modesty of a woman, as good as tells her that he has seen something in her conduct that warranted his presumption.

Men and women are brothers and sisters; they are not of different species; and what need be obtained to know both, but to allow for different modes of education, for situation and constitution, or perhaps I should rather say, for habits, whether good or bad.

I know not my own heart if it be not absolutely free.

It is better to be thought perverse than insincere.

The world, the wise world, that never is wrong itself, judges always by events. And if he should use me ill, then I shall be blamed for trusting him: if well, O then I did right, to be sure!--But how would my censurers act in my case, before the event justifies or condemns the action, is the question.

What the unpenetrating world call Humanity, is often no more than a weak mind pitying itself.