Every man should study conciseness in speaking; it is a sign of ignorance not to know that long speeches, though they may please the speaker, are the torture of the hearer.

Vice is a peripatetic, always in progression.

It is much safer to reconcile an enemy than to conquer him; victory may deprive him of his poison, but reconciliation of his will.

Arrogance is a weed which grows upon a dunghill; it is from the rankness of the soil that she has her height and spreadings: witness, clowns, fools, and fellows, who from nothing, are lifted up some few steps on fortune's ladder: where, seeing the glorious representment of honour above them, they are so eager to embrace it, that they strive to leap thither at once, and by over-reaching themselves in the way, they fail of the end, and fall.

It is rare to see a rich man religious; for religion preaches restraint, and riches prompt to unlicensed freedom.

Truth and fidelity are the pillars of the temple of the world; when these are broken, the fabric falls, and crushes all to pieces.

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.