What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.

My voice is still for war.

There are no more useful members in a commonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in a mutual intercourse of good offices, distribute the gifts of Nature, find work for the poor, and wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great.

The jealous man's disease is of so malignant a nature, that it converts all it takes into its own nourishment.

Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.

The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger; the first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind, the latter to preserve themselves.

I will indulge my sorrows, and give way to all the pangs and fury of despair.