It is certainly much easier wholly to decline a passion than to keep it within just bounds and measures; and that which few can moderate almost anybody may prevent.

God, Nature, the wise, the world, preach man, exhort him both by word and deed to the study of himself.

Wounds and hardships provoke our courage, and when our fortunes are at the lowest, our wits and minds are commonly at the best.

He who receives a benefit should never forget it; he who bestows should never remember it.

He that boasts of his ancestors confesses that he has no virtue of his own. No person ever lived for our honor; nor ought that to be reputed ours, which was long before we had a being; for what advantage can it be to a blind man to know that his parents had good eyes? Does he see one whit the better?

Riches should be admitted into our houses, but not into our hearts; we may take them into our possession, but not into our affections.

Mutability is the badge of infirmity. It is seldom that a man continues to wish and design the same thing two days alike. Now he is for marrying; and now a mistress is preferred to a wife. Now he is ambitious and aspiring; presently the meanest servant is not more humble than he. This hour he squanders his money away; the next he turns miser. Sometimes he is frugal and serious; at other times profuse, airy, and gay.