Though all afflictions are evils in themselves, yet they are good for us, because they discover to us our disease and tend to our cure.

Whether religion be true or false, it must be necessarily granted to be the only wise principle and safe hypothesis for a man to live and die by.

For the spiritual efficacy of the Sacrament doth not depend upon the nature of the thing received, supposing we received what our Lord appointed, and receive it with a right preparation and disposition of mind, but upon the supernatural blessing that goes along with it, and makes it effectual to those spiritual ends for which it was appointed.

Surely modesty never hurt any cause; and the confidence of man seems to me to be much like the wrath of man.

Take away God and religion, and men live to no purpose, without proposing any worthy end of life to themselves.

How often might a man, after he had jumbled a set of letters in a bag, fling them out upon the ground before they would fall into an exact poem, yea, or so much as make a good discourse in prose? And may not a little book be as easily made by chance as this great volume of the world?

The little and short sayings of nice And excellent men are of great value, like the dust of gold, or the least sparks of diamonds.