“Confound these ancestors… They’ve stolen our best ideas!”

Let those that merely talk and never think, That live in the wild anarchy of drink

It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place, and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.

I have no urns, no dusty monuments; No broken images of ancestors, Wanting an ear, or nose; no forged tales Of long descents, to boast false honors from.

To men pressed by their wants all change is ever welcome.

There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.

He was not of an age, but for all time!

I have been at my book; and am now past the craggy paths of study, and come to the flowery plains of honour and reputation

Vice Is like a fury to the vicious mind, And turns delight itself to punishment.

I have discovered that a famed familiarity in great ones is a note of certain usurpation on the less; for great and popular men feign themselves to be servants to others to make those slaves to them.

I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground Upon my flesh t’inflict another wound. Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death With holy Paul; lest it be thought the breath Of discontent; or that these prayers be For weariness of life, not love of thee.

Tis no sin love’s fruits to steal; But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been.

Whom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty.

It is the highest of earthly honors to be descended from the great and good. They alone cry out against a noble ancestry who have none of their own.

Ambition, like a torrent, ne’er looks back; And is a swelling, and the last affection A high mind can put off; being both a rebel Unto the soul and reason, and enforceth All laws, all conscience, treads upon religion, and offereth violence to nature’s self.

Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a prince as many funerals a physician.

It holds for good polity ever, to have that outwardly in vilest estimation, which inwardly is most dear to us.