Be advised what thou dost discourse of, and what thou maintainest whether touching religion, state, or vanity; for if thou err in the first, thou shalt be accounted profane; if in the second, dangerous; if in the third, indiscreet and foolish.

Above all things, be not made an ass to carry the burdens of other men if any friend desire thee to be his surety, give him a part of what thou has to spare if he presses thee further, he is not thy friend at all.

Death, which hateth and destroyeth a man, is believed; God, which hath made him and loves him, is always deferred.

The best time for marriage will be towards thirty, for as the younger times are unfit, either to choose or to govern a wife and family, so, if thou stay long, thou shalt hardly see the education of thy children, who, being left to strangers, are in effect lost; and better were it to be unborn than ill-bred; for thereby thy posterity shall either perish, or remain a shame to thy name.

Men endure the losses that befall them by mere casualty with more patience than the damages they sustain by injustice.

Our immortal souls, while righteous, are by God himself beautified with the title of his own image and similitude.

In a word, we may gather out of History a policy no less wise than I eternal; by the comparison and application of other mens fore-passed miseries with our own like errours and ill-deservings.