How can a rational being be ennobled by anything that is not obtained…

It may be confidently asserted that no man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks. And the desire of rectifying these mistakes, is the noble ambition of an enlightened understanding, the …

By this false politeness, sincerity is sacrificed, and truth violated; and thus artificial manners are necessarily taught. For true politeness is a polish, not a varnish; and should rather be acquired by observation than admonition.

Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world; and this is not a woman's province in a married state. Her sphere of action is not large, and if she is not taught to look into her own …

You know I am not born to tread in the beaten track — the peculiar bent of my nature pushes me on.

Good habits, imperceptibly fixed, are far preferable to the precepts of reason

Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.