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.

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

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.

The necessity of war, which among human actions is the most lawless, hath some kind of affinity with the necessity of law.

It is plain there is not in nature a point of stability to be found; everything either ascends or declines; when wars are ended abroad, sedition begins at home; and when men are freed from fighting for necessity, they quarrel through ambition.

What is our life? A play of passion. Our mirth the music of division. Our mother's wombs the tyring houses be, Where we are drest for this short Comedy.

Better it were not to live than to live a coward.