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.

Contemplation is necessary to generate an object, but action must propagate it.

Gold is the fool's curtain, which hides all his defects from the world.

Virtue were a kind of misery if fame were all the garland that crowned her.

Irresolution is a worse vice than rashness. He that shoots best may sometimes miss the mark; but he that shoots not at all can never hit it. Irresolution loosens all the joints of a state; like an ague, it shakes not this nor that limb, but all the body is at once in a fit. The irresolute man is lifted from one place to another; so hatcheth nothing, but addles all his actions.

There is no detraction worse than to overpraise a man, for if his worth proves short of what report doth speak of him, his own actions are ever giving the lie to his honor.

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