They who are in the highest places, and have the most power, have the least liberty, because they are the most observed.

Some things will not bear much zeal; and the more earnest we are about them, the less we recommend ourselves to the approbation of sober and considerate men.

Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind.

Wealth and riches, that is, an estate above what sufficeth our real occasions and necessities, is in no other sense a 'blessing' than as it is an opportunity put into our hands, by the providence of God, of doing more good.

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.

Many man's scruples lie almost wholly about obedience to authority and compliance with indifferent customs, but very seldom about the dangers of disobedience and unpeaceableness and rending in pieces the Church of Christ by needless separations and endless divisions.

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.