Man (in good earnest) is a marvellous vain, fickle, and unstable subject, and on whom it is very hard to form any certain and uniform judgment.

Amongst so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.

The secret counsels of princes are a troublesome burden to such as have only to execute them.

There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.

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

Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it; reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it.

Beauty is the true prerogative of women, and so peculiarly their own, that our sex, though naturally requiring another sort of feature, is never in its lustre but when puerile and beardless, confused and mixed with theirs.