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