"There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful."

"Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords."

"As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly."

"You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company."

"No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned."

"Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance."

"Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan's egg."

"If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favourable to him."

"I became a feminist as an alternative to becoming a masochist."

"Persistence plus no dignity equals success."

"If you refuse where you have always granted you invite to theft."

"Humans are driven by a perpetual and restless desire of power."