The best armor is to keep out of gunshot.

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.

Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws.

Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.

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 speaking in a perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but love.

States are great engines moving slowly.