The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.

If a sovereign oppresses his people to a great degree, they will rise and cut off his head. There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny that will keep us safe under every form of government.

The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy; their real faults are immediately detected; and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an additional weight of calumny will be superadded.

The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together.

Every man prefers virtue, when there is not some strong incitement to transgress its precepts.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

Wickedness is always easier than virtue, for it takes the short cut to everything.

When female minds are embittered by age or solitude, their malignity is generally exerted in a rigorous and spiteful superintendence of domestic trifles.