Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honoris a private station.

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.

Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful.

Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty; but beauty cannot supply the absence of good nature.

If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve.

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.

A well regulated commerce is not, like law, physic, or divinity, to be overstocked with hands; but, on the contrary, flourishes by multitudes, and gives employment to all its professors.