Men of noble birth are noted to be envious towards new men when they rise. For the distance is altered, and it is like a deceit of the eye, that when others come on they think themselves go back.

Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far and relaxed too much.

Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that, if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?

A picture should be a re-creation of an event rather than an illustration of an object; but there is no tension in the picture unless there is a struggle with the object.

First the amendment of their own minds. For the removal of the impediments of the mind will sooner clear the passages of fortune than the obtaining fortune will remove the impediments of the mind.

Parents who wish to train up their children in the way they should go must go in the way in which they would have their children go.

Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.