“Solitude and reflection are necessary to give to wishes the force of passions.”

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.

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.

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.

All power inebriates weak man; and its abuse proves that the more equality there is established among men, the more virtue and happiness will reign in society.

Only that education deserves emphatically to be termed cultivation of the mind which teaches young people how to begin to think.

Still the men stand up for the dignity of man, by oppressing the women.

But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an hypothesis!

I believe passionately that everyone has a particular God-given ability.

So a moral position is not a message. A moral position is a passionate caring inside you.

The difference between science and religion is the difference between a willingness to dispassionately consider new evidence and new arguments , and a passionate unwillingness to do so.

To be loved to madness–such was her great desire. Love was to her the one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days. And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more than for any particular lover.

Obviously my career’s important to me and I’m really, really passionate about trying to keep it.

If you look at high performers they are always the most passionate – in any industry.

Passionately protest mediocrity.

I just want people to see me as a hard-working footballer and someone who is passionate about the game.