Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues.

We must first pray, that God would make us wise; before we can wish, he would make us happy.

That which the French proverb hath of sickness is true of all evils, that they come on horseback, and go away on foot; we have often seen a sudden fall or one meal's surfeit hath stuck by many to their graves; whereas pleasures come like oxen, slow, and heavily, and go away like post-horses, upon the spur.

Nothing fools people as much as extreme passion.

It is not sin that kills the soul, but impenitence.

Every day is a little life, and our whole life is but a day repeated. Therefore live every day as if it would be the last. Those that dare lose a day, are dangerously prodigal; those that dare misspend it are desperate.

There is no word or action but may be taken with two hands,--either with the right hand of charitable construction, or the sinister interpretation of malice and suspicion; and all things do succeed as they are taken. To construe an evil, action well is but a pleasing and profitable deceit to myself; but to misconstrue a good thing is a treble wrong,--to myself, the action, and the author.