“Rousseau exerts himself to prove that all was right originally: a crowd of authors that all is now right: and I, that all will be right.”

It is far better to be often deceived than never to trust; to be disappointed in love, than never to love.

If children are to be educated to understand the true principle of patriotism, their mother must be a patriot.

The appetites will rule if the mind is vacant.

The honour of the woman is not made even to depend on her will.

It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men.

Virtue flies from a house divided against itself—and a whole legion of devils take up their residence there.

I do not wish them women to have power over men; but over themselves.

Taught from infancy that beauty is woman’s sculpture the mind shapes itself to the body and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.

True sensibility, the sensibility which is the auxiliary of virtue, and the soul of genius, is in society so occupied with the feelings of others, as scarcely to regard its own sensations.

Let woman share the rights, and she will emulate the virtues of man; for she must grow more perfect when emancipated, or justify the authority that chains such a weak being to her duty.

Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to their sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority.

Few, I believe, have had much affection for mankind, who did not first love their parents, their brothers, sisters, and even the domestic brutes, whom they first played with.

We must all be in love once in our lives.

The man who had some virtue whilst he was struggling for a crown, often becomes a voluptuous tyrant when it graces his brow.

Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time.

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.

Time to be grateful to people who aren’t right to us, for showing us our resilience.

To accept someone when everything is going right is easy. But when things are falling apart around you and you stick together, that’s the test of a relationship. Love is when we have every reason to break up but we do not.

Don’t expect wisdom to come into your life like great chunks of rock on a conveyor belt. Wisdom comes privately from God as a byproduct of right decisions, godly reactions, and the application of spiritual principles to daily circumstances.

Sometimes you meet the right one at exactly the wrong time.

I take it not only a day at a time, but a moment at a time, and keep it at that pace. If you can be happy right now, then you’ll always be happy, because it’s always in the now

There’s no right or wrong, success or failure.

It’s good to be on the edge, but I have never followed my mind. I have always followed my heart. And it has yielded the right results.

My parents never raised their hand or fired me. Their way of disciplining me was to tell me what is right or wrong.