Quotes from book

Essays

“Costly followers are not to be liked; lest while a man maketh his train longer, he make his wings shorter.”

“Men's thoughts, are much according to their inclination; their discourse and speeches, according to their learning and infused opinions; but their deeds, are after as they have been accustomed.”

“There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise.”

“Judges ought to remember, that their office is jus dicere, and not jus dare; to interpret law, and not to make law, or give law.”

“It is a strange desire, to seek power and to lose liberty.”

“The greatness of an estate, in bulk and territory, doth fall under measure; and the greatness of finances and revenue, doth fall under computation. The population may appear by musters; and the number and greatness of cities and towns by cards and maps. But yet there is not any thing amongst civil affairs more subject to error, than the right valuation and true judgment concerning the power and forces of an estate.”

“It is a good point of cunning for a man to shape the answer he would have in his own words and propositions, for it makes the other party stick the less.”

“Nature is often hidden; sometimes overcome; seldom extinguished.”

“In charity there is no excess.”

“No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.”

“Men in great place are thrice servants,—servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business.”

“Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.”

“Be true to thyself, as thou be not false to others.”

“Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.”

“But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections, is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.”

“Certainly fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swoln, and drowns things weighty and solid.”

“The winning of honor, is but the revealing of a man's virtue and worth, without disadvantage.”

“So ambitious men, if they find the way open for their rising, and still get forward, they are rather busy than dangerous; but if they be checked in their desires, they become secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye, and are best pleased, when things go backward.”

“There is a cunning which we in England call "the turning of the cat in the pan;" which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said it to him.”