[It is a basic principle of a tyrant] to unarm his people of weapons, money and all means whereby they resist his power.

Flatterers are the worst kind of traitors, for they will strengthen thy imperfections, encourage thee in all evils, correct thee in nothing, but so shadow and paint thy follies and vices as thou shalt never, by their will, discover good from evil, or vice from virtue.

Passions are likened best to floods and streams: The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.

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.

I shall never be persuaded that God hath shut up all light of learning within the lantern of Aristotle's brain.

In a letter to a friend the thought is often unimportant, and the feeling, if it be only a desire to entertain him, every thing.

If thy friends be of better quality than thyself, thou mayest be sure of two things; first, they will be more careful to keep thy counsel, because they have more to lose than thou hast; the second, they will esteem thee for thyself, and not for that which thou dost possess.