Prudence will punish to prevent crime, not to avenge it.

Conversation has a kind of charm about it, an insuating and insidious something that elicits secrets from us just like love or liquor.

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.

When God has once begun to throw down the prosperous, He overthrows them altogether: such is the end of the mighty.

We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

There is nothing that Nature has made necessary which is more easy than death; we are longer a-coming into the world than going out of it; and there is not any minute of our lives wherein we may not reasonably expect it. Nay, it is but a momen'ts work, the parting of soul and body. What a shame is it then to stand in fear of anything so long that is over so soon!

The book-keeping of benefits is simple: it is all expenditure; if any one returns it, that is clear gain; if he does not return it, it is not lost, I gave it for the sake of giving.