“Few know the use of life before ’tis past.”

Our vows are heard betimes! and Heaven takes care To grant, before we can conclude the prayer: Preventing angels met it half the way, And sent us back to praise, who came to pray.

The trumpet’s loud clangor Excites us to arms.

Present joys are more to flesh and blood Than a dull prospect of a distant good.

Forgiveness to the injured does belong; but they ne’er pardon who have done wrong.

Trust reposed in noble natures obliges them the more.

Some of our philosophizing divines have too much exalted the faculties of our souls, when they have maintained that by their force mankind has been able to find out God.

Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide.

All heiresses are beautiful.

Old as I am, for ladies’ love unfit, The power of beauty I remember yet.

For your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.

All, as they say, that glitters is not gold.

The conscience of a people is their power.

Beware the fury of a patient man.

A woman’s counsel brought us first to woe, And made her man his paradise forego, Where at heart’s ease he liv’d; and might have been As free from sorrow as he was from sin.

We can never be grieved for their miseries who are thoroughly wicked, and have thereby justly called their calamities on themselves.

Great souls forgive not injuries till time has put their enemies within their power, that they may show forgiveness is their own.