The same reason that makes us chide and brawl and fall out with any of our neighbors, causeth a war to follow between Princes.

Virtue can have naught to do with ease. . . . It craves a steep and thorny path.

We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game.

There is nothing which so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain credit and favor with them.

Order a purge for your brain, it will there be much better employed than upon your stomach.

I am one of those who hold that poetry is never so blithe as in a wanton and irregular subject.

A strong imagination begetteth opportunity.