To the disgrace of men it is seen that there are women both more wise to judge what evil is expected, and more constant to bear it when it happens.

There needs not strength to be added to inviolate chastity; the excellency of the mind makes the body impregnable.

As in labor, the more one doth exercise, the more one is enabled to do, strength growing upon work; so with the use of suffering, men's minds get the habit of suffering, and all fears and terrors are not to them but as a summons to battle, whereof they know beforehand they shall come off victorious.

For as much as to understand and to be mighty are great qualities, the higher that they be, they are so much the less to be esteemed if goodness also abound not in the possessor.

As the love of the heavens makes us heavenly, the love of virtue virtuous, so doth the love of the world make one become worldly.

It is cruelty in war that buyeth conquest.

Self-love is better than any gilding to make that seem gorgeous wherein ourselves be parties.