When by habit a man cometh to have a bargaining soul, its wings are cut, so that it can never soar. It bindeth reason an apprentice to gain, and instead of a director, maketh it a drudge.

Most men make little use of their speech than to give evidence against their own understanding.

A princely mind will undo a private family.

The law hath so many contradictions and varyings from itself, that the law may not improperly be called a law-breaker. It is become too changeable a thing to be defined: it is made little less a Mystery than the Gospel. The clergy and the lawyers, like the Freemasons, may be supposed to take an oath not to tell the secret.

Weak men are the worse for the good sense they read in books because it furnisheth them only with more matter to mistake.

Men seldom understand any laws but those they feel.

He that leaveth nothing to chance will do few things ill, but he will do very few things.