Do not wonder if the common people speak more truly than those above them: they speak more safely.

Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.

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.

A good conscience is a continual feast.

The way of fortune is like the milky way in the sky; which is a meeting, or knot, of a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together : so are there a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.

It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.

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