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.

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.

The lowest boor may laugh on being tickled, but a man must have intelligence to be amused by wit.

Avarice is insatiable, and is always pushing on for more.

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

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.

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.