The common people do not judge of vice or virtue by morality or immorality, so much as by the stamp that is set upon it by men of figure.

Nothing is so fierce but love will soften; nothing so sharp-sighted in other matters but it will throw a mist before its eyes.

The very soul of the slothful does effectually but lie drowsing in his body, and the whole man is totally given up to his senses.

Some natures are so sour and ungrateful that they are never to be obliged.

The blessings of fortune are the lowest; the next are the bodily advantages of strength and health; but the superlative blessings, in fine, are those of the mind.

Money does all things,--for it gives and it takes away; it makes honest men and knaves, fools and philosophers; and so forward, mutatis mutandis, to the end of the chapter.

There is no creature so contemptible but by resolution may gain his point.