“Those who are bold enough to advance before the age they live in, must learn to brave censure.”

I gazed around with rapture, and felt more of that spontaneous pleasure which gives credibility to our expectation of happiness than I had for a long, long time before.

Men of genius and talents have started out of a class, in which women have never yet been placed.

Some women govern their husbands without degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern.

Let us eat, drink, and love for tomorrow we die, would be in fact the language of reason, the morality of life; and who but a fool would part with a reality for a fleeting shadow?

Only by the jostlings of equality can we form a just opinion of ourselves.

Men, indeed, appear to me to act in a very unphilosophical manner when they try to secure the good conduct of women by attempting to keep them always in a state of childhood.

Like the flowers that are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty.

The greater number of people take their opinions on trust, to avoid the trouble of exercising their own minds, and these indolent beings naturally adhere to the letter, rather than the spirit of a law, divine or human.

I never wanted but your heart-that gone, you have nothing more to give.

They may be convenient slaves, but slavery will have its constant effect, degrading the master and the abject dependent.

Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable – and life is more than a dream.

My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.

How can a rational being be ennobled by any thing that is not obtained by its own exertions?

She would stand and behold the waves rolling, and think of the voice that could still the tumultuous deep.

Every glance afforded colouring for the picture she was delineating on her heart.

Let their faculties have room to unfold, and their virtues to gain strength, and then determine where the whole sex must stand in the intellectual scale.

Everybody, no matter how old you are, is around 24, 25 in their heart.

I think we live in an age of increasing mediocrity.

Love is like a fever which comes and goes quite independently of the will. There are no age limits for love.

So Harry Potter came in and it is nice that I have kids of the right age. I took them to London and they walked around the set and met Harry Potter and that is thrilling.

In the early ages men ruled by strength; now they rule by brain, and so long as there is only one man in the world who can think and plan, he will stand head and shoulders above him who cannot.

I got a lot of experience for my age. Some artists might take a line or two from a bunch of songs and snip it together and make something, but everything I say I do.

I am only 33, I’ve got a lot to do. This is the first half of my career. I’m looking forward to the future and I’m proud about the past.

Save your money. You’re going to need twice as much money in your old age as you think.