To be longing for this thing to-day and for that thing to-morrow; to change likings for loathings, and to stand wishing and hankering at a venture--how is it possible for any man to be at rest in this fluctuant, wandering humor and opinion?

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

Men talk as if they believed in God, but they live as if they thought there was none; their vows and promises are no more than words, of course.

He that contemns a shrew to the degree of not descending to words with her does worse than beat her.

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.

There is not one grain in the universe, either too much or too little, nothing to be added, nothing to be spared; nor so much as any one particle of it, that mankind may not be either the better or the worse for, according as it is applied.

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.