All letters, methinks, should be as free and easy as one’s discourse,…

[A] real kindness is so far beyond all compliment, that it never appears more than when there is least of t'other mingled with it.

I shall never be persuaded that marriage has a charm to raise love out of nothing, much less out of dislike.

[F]or me 'tis a better-natured and a less fault to believe too much than to distrust where there is no cause.

I am not apt to suspect without just cause, but in earnest if I once find anybody faulty towards me, they lose me for ever; I have forsworn being twice deceived by the same person.

The heat of the day is spent in reading or working, and about six or seven o’clock, I walk out into a common that lies hard by the house, where a great many young wenches keep sheep and cows and sit in the shade singing of ballads. [...] I …

'[T]is a sad thing when all one's happiness is only that the world does not know you are miserable.