The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other.

Men leave their riches either to their kindred or their friends, and moderate portions prosper best in both.

It is a secret both in nature and state, that it is safer to change many things than one.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marryA young man not yet, an elder man not at all.

If I go to the National Gallery and I look at one of the great paintings that excite me there, it's not so much the painting that excites me as that the painting unlocks all kinds of valves of sensation within me which return me to life more violently.

Let no one think or maintain that a person can search too far or be too well studied in either the book of God's word or the book of God's works.

Nothing is more pleasant to the eye than green grass kept finely shorn.