All men, among themselves, are by nature equal. The inequality we now discern hath its spring from the civil law.

Emulation is grief arising from seeing one's self, exceeded or excelled by his concurrent, together with hope to equal or exceed him in time to come, by his own ability. But envy is the same grief joined with pleasure conceived in the imagination of some ill-fortune that may befall him.

The best men are the least suspicious of fraudulent purposes.

Words are the counters of wise men, but the money of fools.

If I had read as much as other men I would have known no more than they.

Seeing then that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth, had need to remember what every name he uses stands for; and to place it accordingly; or else he will find himself entangled in words, as a bird in lime-twigs; the more he struggles, the more belimed.

If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.