There is reason to think the most celebrated philosophers would have been bunglers at business; but the reason is because they despised it.

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.

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

Our virtues and vices couple with one another, and get children that resemble both their parents.

You should live in the world so as it may hang about you like a loose garment.

No man is so much a fool as not to have wit enough sometimes to be a knave; nor any so cunning a knave as not to have the weakness sometimes to play the fool.

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.