“Desire of greatness is a godlike sin.”

Keen appetite And quick digestion wait on you and yours.

Not sharp revenge, nor hell itself can find, A fiercer torment than a guilty mind, Which day and night doth dreadfully accuse, Condemns the wretch, and still the charge renews.

Griefs assured are felt before they come.

Truth is the object of our understanding, as good is of our will; and the understanding can no more be delighted with a lie than the will can choose an apparent evil.

War seldom enters but where wealth allures.

He is a perpetual fountain of good sense.

For Art may err, but Nature cannot miss.

Secret guilt is by silence revealed.

Reason is a crutch for age, but youth is strong enough to walk alone.

I’m a little wounded, but I am not slain; I will lay me down to bleed a while. Then I’ll rise and fight again.

They that possess the prince possess the laws.

None, none descends into himself, to find The secret imperfections of his mind: But every one is eagle-ey’d to see Another’s faults, and his deformity.

Our souls sit close and silently within, And their own web from their own entrails spin; And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such, That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.

Merit challenges envy.

Sculptors are obliged to follow the manners of the painters, and to make many ample folds, which are unsufferable hardness, and more like a rock than a natural garment.

For secrets are edged tools, And must be kept from children and from fools.