Every tribulation which ever comes our way either is sent to be medicinal, if we will take it as such, or may become medicinal, if we will make it such, or is better than medicinal, unless we forsake it.

It is naturally given to all men to esteem their own inventions best.

The most part of all princes have more delight in warlike manners and feats of chivalry than in the good feats of peace.

By reason of gifts and bribes the offices be given to rich men, which should rather have been executed by wise men.

Pride measures prosperity not by her own advantages but by the disadvantages of others. She would not even wish to be a goddess unless there were some wretches left whom she could order about and lord it over, whose misery would make her happiness seem all the more extraordinary, whose poverty can be tormented and exacerbated by a display of her wealth. This infernal serpent, pervading the human heart, keeps men from reforming their lives, holding them back like a suckfish.

I should only ever tell the king what he ought to do, not what he could do. For if the lion knows his own strength, no man could control him.

For men use, if they have an evil turn, to write it in marble; and whoso doth us a good turn we write it in dust.