To know what virtue is is not enough; we must endeavor to possess and to practice it, or in some other manner actually ourselves to become good.

Thus it is thought that justice is equality; and so it is, but not for all persons, only for those that are equal. Inequality also is thought to be just; and so it is, but not for all, only for the unequal. We make bad mistakes if we neglect this for whom when we are deciding what is just. The reason is that we are making judgements about ourselves, and people are generally bad judges where their own interests are involved.

Melancholy men of all others are most witty, which causeth many times a divine ravishment, and a kinde of Enthusiasmus, which stirreth them up to bee excellent Philosophers, Poets, Prophets, etc.

Laws, when good, should be supreme; and that the magistrate or magistrates should regulate those matters only on which the laws are unable to speak with precision owing to the difficulty of any general principle embracing all particulars.

The greatest injustices proceed from those who pursue excess, not by those who are driven by necessity.

Hippocrates is an excellent geometer but a complete fool in everyday affairs.

The line between lawful and unlawful abortion will be marked by the fact of having sensation and being alive.