It were better for a man to be subject to any vice than to drunkenness; for all other vanities and sins are recovered, but a drunkard will never shake off the delight of beastliness.

A professional man of letters, especially if he is much at war with unscrupulous enemies, is naturally jealous of his privacy; he will be silent on his more personal interests, or, if he must speak, will veil them under conventional forms.

Less pains in the world a man cannot take than to bold his tongue.

There is no error which hath not some appearance of probability resembling truth, which, when men who study to be singular find out, straining reason, they then publish to the world matter of contention and jangling.

Covetous ambition, thinking all too little which presently it hath, supposeth itself to stand in need of that which it hath not.

Whoso taketh in hand to govern a multitude, either by way of liberty or principality, and cannot assure himself of those persons that are enemies to that enterprise, doth frame a state of short perseverance.

Because all men are apt to flatter themselves, to entertain the addition of other men's praises is most perilous.