As the most generous vine, if it is not pruned, runs out into many superfluous stems, and grows at last weak and fruitless; so dote the best man, if he be not cut short of his desires and pruned with afflictions. If it be painful to bleed, it is worse to wither. Let me be pruned, that I may grow, rather than be cut up to burn.

The ear and the eye are the mind's receivers; but the tongue is only busy in expending the treasures received. It, therefore, the revenues of the mind be uttered as fast or faster than they are received, it must needs be bare, and can never lay up for purchase.

He is a very humble man, that thinks not himself better than some others.

I have seldom seen much ostentation and much learning met together. The sun, rising and declining, makes long shadows; at mid day, when he is highest, none at all.

It is not the bee's touching on the flowers that gathers the honey, but her abiding for a time upon them, and drawing out the sweet.

...Covetousness, looking more at what we would have than at what we have.

A man's opinion is in others; his being is in himself.