And it will fall out as in a complication of diseases, that by applying a remedy to one sore, you will provoke another; and that which removes the one ill symptom produces others.

. . . the state of things and the dispositions of men were then such, that a man could not well tell whom he might trust or whom he might fear.

Howbeit, this one thing, son, I assure you on my faith, that if the parties will at hands call for justice, then, all were it my father stood on the one side, and the devil on the other, his cause being good, the devil should have right.

If we lived in a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us saintly. But since we see that avarice, anger, pride and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice and thought, perhaps we must stand fast a little, even at the risk of being heroes.

For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.

A drowning man will clutch at a straw.

I die the king's faithful servant, but God's first.