“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.”

“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune.”

“Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.”

“Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. Therefore atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no further: and we see the times inclined to atheism (as the time of Augustus Cæsar) were civil times. But superstition hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new primum mobile, that ravisheth all the spheres of government. The master of superstition is the people; and in all superstition wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order.”

“The virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is fortitude.”

“Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.”

“Constancy is the foundation of virtues”