In a troubled state we must do as in foul weather upon a river, not think to cut directly through, for the boat may be filled with water; but rise and fall as the waves do, and give way as much as we conveniently can.

Preachers say, "Do as I say, not as I do." But if a physician had the same disease upon him that I have, and he should bid me do one thing and he do quite another, could I believe him?

Tis not seasonable to call a man traitor, that has an army at his heels.

The Hall was the place where the great lord used to eat . . . He ate not in private, except in time of sickness . . . Nay, the king himself used to eat in the Hall, and his lords sat with him, and he understood men.

All things are God's already; we can give him no right, by consecrating any, that he had not before, only we set it apart to his service - just as a gardener brings his master a basket of apricots, and presents them; his lord thanks him, and perhaps gives him something for his pains, and yet the apricots were as much his lord's before as now.

Few men make themselves masters of the things they write or speak.

Of all the actions of a man's life, his marriage does least concern other people, yet of all the actions of our lives, 'tis the most meddled with by other people.