Wisdom is a fox who, after long hunting, will at last cost you the pains to dig out; it is a cheese, which, by how much the richer, has the thicker, the homlier, and the coarser coat; and whereof to a judicious palate, the maggots are best. It is a sack posset, wherein the deeper you go, you'll find it the sweeter. Wisdom is a hen, whose cackling we must value and consider, because it is attended with an egg. But lastly, it is a nut, which, unless you choose with judgment, may cost you a tooth, and pay you with nothing but a worm.

Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy, is the best bred man in company.

All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.

Cruel people are ever cowards in emergency.

The axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs and left him a withered trunk.

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.

Patience alleviates, as impatience augments, pain; thus persons of strong will suffer less than those who give way to irritation.