To ruminate upon evils, to make critical notes upon injuries, and be too acute in their apprehensions, is to add unto our own tortures, to feather the arrows of our enemies, to lash ourselves with the scorpions of our foes, and to resolve to sleep no more.

A man is never alone, not only because he is with himself and his own thoughts, but because he is with the Devil, who ever consorts with our solitude.

Grave-stones tell truth scarce forty years. Generations pass while families last not three oaks.

Oblivion is not to be hired.

Natura nihil agit frustra [Nature does nothing in vain] is the only indisputible axiom in philosophy. There are no grotesques in nature; not any thing framed to fill up empty cantons, and unncecessary spaces.

I can cure the gout or stone in some, sooner than Divinity, Pride, or Avarice in others.

Though it be in the power of the weakest arm to take away life, it is not in the strongest to deprive us of death.