Solitude can be used well by very few people. They who do must have a knowledge of the world to see the foolishness of it, and enough virtue to despise all the vanity.

Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise.

All this world's noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy!

What a brave privilege is it to be free from all contentions, from all envying or being envied, from receiving or paying all kinds of ceremonies!

To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philosopher, from the world; or rather, a retreat from the world, as it is man's, into the world, as it is God's.

Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.

May I a small house and large garden have; And a few friends, And many books, both true.