When ideas float in our mind, without any reflection or regard of the understanding, it is that which the French call reverie.

A criminal who, having renounced reason ... hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or tiger, one of those wild savage beasts with whom men can have no society nor security.

Till a man can judge whether they be truths or not, his understanding is but little improved, and thus men of much reading, though greatly learned, but may be little knowing.

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.

When we know our own strength, we shall the better know what to undertake with hopes of success.

It is vain to find fault with those arts of deceiving wherein men find pleasure to be deceived.

The reservedness and distance that fathers keep, often deprive their sons of that refuge which would be of more advantage to them than an hundred rebukes or chidings.