Quotes

The whole series of my life appeared to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality.

To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of ocean by the frailty of its foam.

It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.

Every man's happiness depends from himself, but behold thy life is almost at an end, whiles affording thyself no respect, thou dost make thy happiness to consist in the souls, and conceits of other men.

No man is quite sane; each has a vein of folly in his composition, a slight determination of blood to the head, to make sure of holding him hard to some one point which nature had taken to heart.

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well.

I thought of the promise of virtues which he had displayed on the opening of his existence and the subsequent blight of all kindly feeling by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested towards him.

But, when man, governed by reasonable laws, enjoys his natural freedom, let him despise woman, if she do not share it with him; and, till that glorious period arrives, in descanting on the folly of the sex, let him not overlook his own.

The ambitious supposeth another man's act, praise and applause, to be his own happiness; the voluptuous his own sense and feeling; but he that is wise, his own action.

You wish to think all the world respectable, and are hurt if I speak ill of anybody.

The picture I present to you is peaceful and human, and you must feel that you could deny it only in the wantonness of power and cruelty.

Let not men then in the pride of power, use the same arguments that tyrannic kings and venal ministers have used, and fallaciously assert, that woman ought to be subjected because she has always been so.

No man can judge what is good evidence on any particular subject, unless he knows that subject well.

I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness.

Everything has two handles: one by which it may be borne, another by which it cannot.

The perception of what is small is (the secret of) clear-sightedness; the guarding of what is soft and tender is (the secret of) strength.

I tenderly love these friends; I have, unknown to them, been for many months in the habits of daily kindness towards them; but they believe that I wish to injure them, and it is that prejudice which I wish to overcome.

Rest belongs to the work as the eyelids to the eyes.