Partiality in a parent is unlucky; for fondlings are in danger to be made fools.

Wickedness may prosper for awhile, but in the long run, he that sets all the knaves at work will pay them.

Riches are gotten with pain, kept with care, and lost with grief. The cares of riches lie heavier upon a good man than the inconveniences of an honest poverty.

There is no opposing brutal force to the stratagems of human reason.

What man in his right senses, that has wherewithal to live free, would make himself a slave for superfluities? What does that man want who has enough? Or what is he the better for abundance that can never be satisfied.

All duties are matters of conscience, with this restriction that a superior obligation suspends the force of an inferior one.

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.