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.

A man should not so much respect what he eats, as with whom he eats.

People of our time are so formed for agitation and ostentation that goodness, moderation, equability, constancy, and such quiet and obscure qualities are no longer felt.

Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping themselves always in show, like the statue of a public place.

There is no so wretched and coarse a soul wherein some particular faculty is not seen to shine.

To know how to live is my trade and my art.

The good opinion of the vulgar is injurious.