Flattery in courtship is the highest insolence, for whilst it pretends to bestow on you more than you deserve, it is watching an opportunity to take ….

The words of kindness are more healing to a drooping heart than balm or honey..

But in all things whether we shall make only a due use of the liberties we have asked, is left entirely to the judicious reader to decide..

The loss of liberty which must attend being a wife was of all things the most horrible to my imagination..

Tis this desire of bending all things to our own purposes which turns them into confusion and is the chief source of every error in our lives..

I fancied I had some constancy of mind because I could bear my own sufferings, but found through the sufferings of others I could be weakened like a ….

I had some short struggle in my mind whether I should resign my lover or my liberty, but this lasted not long. I found myself as free as air and coul….

I endeavor not to conceal that I believe there is a great mixture of desire in the passion which is called love--or rather, without any far-fetched s….

I am none of those nonsensical fools that can whine and make romantic love--I leave that to younger brothers. Let my estate speakfor me..

I know not whether it would be too bold an assertion to say that candor makes capacity.... But in order to try the truth of any observation relating ….

I believe no gentleman would like to have his family affairs neglected because his wife was filling her head with crotchets and pothooks, and who, be….

[F]or as Socrates says that a wise man is a citizen of the world, so I thought that a wise woman was equally at liberty to range through every statio….

Little miss is taught by her mamma that she must never speak before she is spoken to. On this she sits bridling up her head, looking from one to the ….

I often used to think myself in the case of the fox-hunter, who, when he had toiled and sweated all day in the chase as if some unheard-of blessing w….

[Allegory] is a flight by which the human wit attempts at one and the same time to investigate two objects, and consequently is fitted only to the mo….

Thoroughly to unfold the labyrinths of the human mind is an arduous task.... In order to dive into those recesses and lay them open to the reader in ….

Yet if strict criticism should till frown on our method, let candor and good humor forgive what is done to the best of our judgment, for the sake of ….

[T]he judicious reader ought to know what the chief character in any work of the imagination will naturally perform, according to the situation he is….

I was amongst the virtues like the great Turk in his seraglio of women, and I chose to dwell with that virtue which looked the fairest in my eyes and….

On the wings of fancy, gentle readers, bear yourselves into the mid-air, where by imagination you may form a large stupendous castle..

Agreeable then to my present inclination, I formed the object of my own worship, which was no other than my own understanding..