Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them fortunate.

The soul that has no established aim loses itself

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

Men of simple understanding, little inquisitive and little instructed, make good Christians.

[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.

The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.

We have so much ill fortune as inconstancy, or so much bad purpose as folly, we are not so full of evil as we are of inanity; we are not so wretched as we are base