Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by others.

Custom looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present, but both of them are somewhat purblind as to things that are to come.

It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. He that is on a lee shore, and foresees a hurricane, stands out to sea and encounters a storm to avoid a shipwreck.

Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console.

We devote the activity of our youth to revelry and the decrepitude of our old age to repentance: and we finish the farce by bequeathing our dead bodies to the chancel, which when living, we interdicted from the church.

Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.

Villainy that is vigilant will be an overmatch for virtue, if she slumber at her post.