The best of men cannot suspend their fate; The good die early, and the bad die late.
Pride, the first peer and president of Hell.
And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny’s the worst.
He that opposes his own judgment against the consent of the times ought to be backed with unanswerable truths; and he that has truth on his side is a fool as well as a coward if he is afraid to own it because of other men’s opinions.
Law is but a heathen word for power.
Pleasure is a thief to business.
Avery fine city; the four principal streets are the fairest for breadth, and the finest built that I have ever seen in one city together? In a word,’tis the cleanest and beautifullest, and best built city in Britain, London excepted.
Wit, like the Belly, if it be not fed, Will starve the Members, and distract the Head.
Friends are good, – good, if well chosen.
Wit is the Fruitful Womb where Thoughts conceive.
Tis very strange men should be so fond of being wickeder than they are.
All evils are to be considered with the good that is in them, and with what worse attends them.
Those people cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them because they see and covet what He has not given them. All of our discontents for what we want appear to me to spring from want of thankfulness for what we have.
For sudden Joys, like Griefs, confound at first.
Today we love what tomorrow we hate, today we seek what tomorrow we shun, today we desire what tomorrow we fear, nay, even tremble at the apprehensions of.
And I add this part here, to hint to whoever shall read it, that whenever they come to a true Sense of things, they will find Deliverance from Sin a much greater Blessing than Deliverance from Affliction.
Expect nothing and you’ll always be surprised.
Nature has left this tincture in the blood, That all men would be tyrants if they could.
I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as a civilized and a Christian country, that we deny the advantages of learning to women.
An Englishman will fairly drink as much As will maintain two families of Dutch.