What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster? To see rare effects, and no cause ; a motion, without a mover ; a circle, without a centre ; a time, without an eternity ; a second, without a first : these are things so against philosophy and natural reason, that he must be a beast in understanding who can believe in them. The thing formed, says that nothing formed it ; and that which is made is, while that which made it is not, This folly is infinite.

Humility is like a tree, whose root when it sets deepest in the earth rises higher, and spreads fairer and stands surer, and lasts longer, and every step of its descent is like a rib of iron.

To be proud of learning is the greatest ignorance.

When you lie down with a short prayer, commit yourself into the hands of your Creator; and when you have done so, trust Him with yourself, as you must do when you are dying.

Dive on them and squash them if you must.

since God has appointed one remedy for all the evils in the world and that is a contented spirit.

Impatience turns an ague into a fever, a fever to the plague, fear into despair, anger into rage, loss into madness, and sorrow to amazement.