She [Evelina] is not, indeed, like most modern young ladies; to be known in half an hour; her modest worth, and fearful excellence, require both time and encouragement to show themselves.

Insensibility, of all kinds, and on all occasions, most moves my imperial displeasure

I am ashamed of confessing that I have nothing to confess.

Travelling is the ruin of all happiness. There's no looking at a building here after seeing Italy.

But if the young are never tired of erring in conduct, neither are the older in erring of judgment.

Credulity is the sister of innocence.

I wish the opera was every night. It is, of all entertainments, the sweetest and most delightful. Some of the songs seemed to melt my very soul.

to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.

Nothing is so delicate as the reputation of a woman; it is at once the most beautiful and most brittle of all human things.

A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that, is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.

I cannot sleep - great joy is as restless as sorrow.

Hope is strong faith.

There are many more layers to innocence than one might ever imagine, and we are ever unaware of them until each barrier is breached.

If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.

Those who foresee the future and recognize it as tragic are often seized by a madness which forces them to commit the very acts which makes it certain that what they dread shall happen.

My fate has been that what I undertook was fully understood only after the fact.

Fortifications, artillery, foreign aid - will be of no value, unless the ordinary soldier knows that it is HE guarding his country

I am an expressionist and by that I mean that I'm not a photographer or a writer or a painter or a tap dancer, but rather someone who expresses himself according to his needs.

You're always looking for some new way to tell the same story, but it's how they get to the happy end that is the challenge and the fun for a writer.

Death is not extinction. Neither the soul nor the body is extinguished or put out of existence.

The only way to combat failure is to see it as an opportunity to improve your direction.