Necessity is a violent school-mistress.

Virtue cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again.

We cannot be held to what is beyond our strength and means; for at times the accomplishment and execution may not be in our power, and indeed there is nothing really in our own power except the will: on this are necessarily based and founded all the principles that regulate the duty of man.

And obstinacy is the sister of constancy, at least in vigour and stability.

All passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but moderate.

Every man may speak truly, but to speak methodically, prudently, and fully is a talent that few men have.

O human creature,you are the investigator without knowledge, the magistrate without jurisdiction, and all in all, the fool of the farce.