To go to law is for two persons to kindle a fire, at their own cost, to warm others and singe themselves to cinders; and because they cannot agree as to what is truth and equity, they will both agree to unplume themselves that others may be decorated with their feathers.

A sentence well couched takes both the sense and understanding. I love not those cart-rope speeches that are longer than the memory of man can fathom.

Virtue dwells at the head of a river, to which we cannot get but by rowing against the stream.

Riches, though they may reward virtues, yet they cannot cause them; he is much more noble who deserves a benefit than he who bestows one.

Human life has not a surer friend, nor oftentimes a greater enemy, than hope. It is the miserable man's god, which in the hardest gripe of calamity never fails to yield to him beams of comfort. It is the presumptuous man's devil, which leads him a while in a smooth way, and then suddenly breaks his neck.

It is to be doubted whether he will ever find the way to heaven who desires to go thither alone.

Men are like wine,--not good before the lees of clownishness be settled.