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.

The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded.

Mark what a generosity and courage (a dog) will put on when he finds himself maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a God

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.

A much talking judge is an ill-tuned cymbal.

All authority must be out of a man's self, turned . . . either upon an art, or upon a man.

Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest