Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.

If my people look as if they're in a dreadful fix, it's because I can't get them out of a technical dilemma.

Great changes are easier than small ones.

As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.

For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocence, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.

Philosophers make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light because they are so high.