“Thus do we wish as we float down the stream of life, whilst chance does more to gratify our desire for knowledge than our best-laid plans.”

Taxes on the very necessaries of life, enable an endless tribe of idle princes and princesses to pass with stupid pomp before a gaping crowd, who almost worship the very parade which costs them so dear.

It appears necessary to go back to first principles in search of the most simple truths, and to dispute with some prevailing prejudice every inch of ground.

But let me now stop; I may be a little partial, and view every thing with the jaundiced eye of melancholy – for I am sad – and have cause.

Soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste are almost synonymous with the epithets of weakness, I wish to show that elegance is inferior to virtue.

Happy would it be for women, if they were only flattered by the men who loved them; I mean, who love the individual, not the sex.

In short, women, in general, as well as the rich of both sexes, have acquired all the follies and vices of civilization, and missed the useful fruit.

Without the aid of the imagination all the pleasures of the senses must sink into grossness.

Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath.

Either nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the world is not yet anywhere near to being fully civilized.

I like to use significant words.

I have sighed when obliged to confess that either Nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the civilization which has hitherto taken place in the world has been very partial.

My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed – my dearest pleasure when free.

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

No man chooses evil because it is evil; he just mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices, rather than to root them out.

Into this error men have, probably, been led by viewing education in a false light; not considering it as the first step to form a being advancing gradually towards perfection; but only as a preparation for life.

There’s a desire in me to express something – to match what I hear in my head.

For once I want to be something that lasts.

Free is a man who has no desires.

What we are and what we possess is but a loan- and that not for long! Do not clutch what has been given to you, for joy and desire to possess are but nails fastening you to the perishable world.

My desire for connection is stronger than my desire for perfection.

True devotion is for itself: not to desire heaven nor to fear hell.

Even if we all want you here, you don’t belong until you decide you do.

Whatever befalls us has its meaning; though it is often hard to grasp. In the Book of Life every page has two sides. On the upper one, we inscribe our plans, dreams and hopes; the reverse is filled by providence, whose verdicts rarely match our desire.