“The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced.”

“The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.”

“The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation.”

“This, reader, is an honest book...I want to appear in my simple, natural and everyday dress, without strain or artifice; for it is myself that I portray”

“Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known.”

“The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to live to the point.”

“How many we know who have fled the sweetness of a tranquil life in their homes, among the friends, to seek the horror of uninhabitable deserts; who have flung themselves into humiliation, degradation, and the contempt of the world, and have enjoyed these and even sought them out.”