Our own peculiar human condition is that we are as fit to be laughed at as able to laugh.

Satiety comes of too frequent repetition and he who will not give himself leisure to be thirsty can never find the true pleasure of drinking

The first law that ever God gave to man was a law of pure obedience; it was a commandment naked and simple, wherein man had nothing to inquire after, or to dispute, forasmuch as to obey is the proper office of a rational soul, acknowledging a heavenly superior and benefactor. From obedience and submission spring all other virtues, as all sin does from self-opinion.

Men are nothing until they are excited.

I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.

The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure; neither the greatest captains nor the greatest philosophers have disdained the use or science of eating well.

Whatever is enforced by command is more imputed to him who exacts than to him who performs.