Zeal is fit for wise men, but flourishes chiefly among fools.

And as for Pleasure, there is little in this World that is true and sincere, besides the Pleasure of doing our Duty, and of doing good.

Religion in a magistrate strengthens his authority, because it procures veneration, and gains a reputation to it. In all the affairs of this world, so much reputation is in reality so much power.

Whatever convenience may be thought to be in falsehood and dissimulation, it is soon over; but the inconvenience of it is perpetual, because it brings a man under everlasting jealousy and suspicion, so that he is not believed when he speaks the truth, nor trusted when perhaps he means honestly.

Let no man deceive you with vain words or vain hopes or false notions of a slight and sudden repentance. As if heaven were a hospital founded on purpose to receive all sick and maimed persons that, when they can live no longer to the lusts of the flesh and the sinful pleasures of this world, can but put up a cold and formal petition to be admitted there. No, no, as sure as God is true, they shall never see the Kingdom of God who, instead of seeking it in the first place, make it their last refuge and retreat.

True wisdom is a thing very extraordinary. Happy are they that have it: and next to them, not those many that think they have it, but those few that are sensible of their own defects and imperfections, and know that they have it not.

When a man has once forfeited the reputation of his integrity, he is set fast, and nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth nor falsehood.