Gold once out of the earth is no more due unto it; what was unreasonably committed to the ground, is reasonably resumed from it; let monuments and rich fabricks, not riches, adorn men's ashes.

I have loved my friends as I do virtue, my soul, my God.

The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible, wherein as in a portrait, things are not truly, but in equivocal shapes, and as they counterfeit some real substance in that invisible fabric.

Where we desire to be informed 'tis good to contest with men above ourselves; but to confirm and establish our opinions, 'tis best to argue with judgments below our own, that the frequent spoils and victories over their reasons may settle in ourselves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own.

Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living: All things fall under this name. The Sun itself is but the dark simulacrum, and the light but the shadow of God.

Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles.

Be Charitable before wealth make thee covetous, and loose not the glory of the Mite.