On tobacco: A branch of the sin of drunkenness, which is the root of all sins.

Herein is not only a great vanity, but a great contempt of God's good gifts, that the sweetness of man's breath, being a good gift of God, should be willfully corrupted by this stinking smoke.

The wisest fool in Christendom.

I will govern according to the common weal, but not according to the common will.

If I were not a king, I would be a university man; and if it were so that I must be a prisoner, if I might have my wish, I would desire to have no other prison than that library [the Bodleian].

It is one of God's blessings that we cannot foreknow the hour of our death; for a time fixed, even beyond the possibility of living, would trouble us more than doth this uncertainty.

I acknowledge the Roman Church to be our mother church, although defiled with some infirmities and corruptions...Let [the Papists] assure themselves, that, as I am a friend of their persons, if they be good subjects, so am I a vowed enemy, and do denounce mortal war to their errors.