When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative.
Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not a sense of humor to console him for what he is.
Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.
By indignities men come to dignities.
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.
Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.
But men must know, that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.
Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice.
Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes adversity not without many comforts and hopes.
Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.
Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.
Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.
The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.
The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.
Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.
We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.
Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.
Age appears to be best in four things old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.
A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.
Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.
A bachelor's life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner.
Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.
Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.
He that hath knowledge spareth his words.
A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
What is truth? said jesting Pilate and would not stay for an answer.
Truth is a good dog but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.
A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
Acorns were good until bread was found.
It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.
God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires.
God's first creature, which was light.
Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.
He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils for time is the greatest innovator.
I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.
Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education in the elder, a part of experience.
Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse.
Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.
Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.
The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.
Money is like manure, of very little use except it be spread.
Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.
Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.
Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.
Friends are thieves of time.
God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.
Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.