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

Of what violences, murders, depredations, have not the epic poets, from all antiquity, been the occasion, by propagating false honor, false glory, and false religion?

There would be no supporting life were we to feel quite as poignantly for others as we do for ourselves.

Whenever we approve, we can find a hundred good reasons to justify our approbation. Whenever we dislike, we can find a thousand to justify our dislike.

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.

Reverence to a woman in courtship is less to be dispensed with, as, generally, there is but little of it shown afterwards.

Those we dislike can do nothing to please us.