“Poor worms, they hiss at me, whilst I at home Can be contented to applaud myself, . . . with joy To see how plump my bags are and my barns.”

We are persons of quality, I assure you, and women of fashion, and come to see and to be seen.

Passions are spiritual rebels and raise sedition against the understanding.

To speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.

God wisheth none should wreck on a strange shelf: To him man’s dearer than to himself.

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.