He that seeks perfection upon earth leaves nothing new for the saints to find in heaven; for whilst men teach, there will be mistakes in divinity, and as long as no other govern, errors in the State.

What you leave at your death, let it be without controversy, else the lawyers will be your heirs.

A few books, well studied, and thoroughly digested, nourish the understanding more than hundreds but gargled in the mouth, as ordinary students use.

I bear to the wisdom of Sir Philip Sidney, who said that next to hunting he liked hawking worst. However, though he may have fallen into as hyperbolical an extreme, yet who can put too great a scorn upon their folly, that, to bring home a rascal deer, or a few rotten conies, submit their lives to the will or passion of such as may take them under a penalty no less slight than there is discretion shown in exposing them.

Let not the titles of consanguinity betray you into a prejudicial trust; no blood being apter to raise a fever, or cause a consumption sooner in your poor estate, than that which is nearest your own.

Such as are betrayed by their easy nature to be ordinary security for their friends leave so little to themselves, as their liberty remains ever after arbitrary at the will of others; experience having recorded many, whom their fathers had left elbowroom enough, that by suretyship have expired in a dungeon.

Covetousness, like a candle ill made, smothers the splendor of a happy fortune in its own grease.