The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall, or at least an eclipse.

Friendship redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half.

Images also help me find and realise ideas. I look at hundreds of very different, contrasting images and I pinch details from them, rather like people who eat from other people`s plates.

In civil business; what first? boldness; what second and third? boldness: and yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness.

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.

He that plots to be the only figure among ciphers [zeros], is the decay of the whole age.

Libraries are as the shrine where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.