Believing that I was born for the service of mankind, and regarding the care of the commonwealth as a kind of common property which, like the air and the water, belongs to everybody, I set myself to consider in what way mankind might be best served, and what service I was myself best fitted by nature to perform.

It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.

If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.

The greatest trust between man and man is the trust of giving counsel.

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men.

The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.

The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man.