Essays, moral, economical, and political

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Page 162 - STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring: for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business...
Page 3 - ... in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it ; for these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent, which goeth basely upon the belly and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious.
Page 20 - HE that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune ; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men ; which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public.
Page 3 - It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea : a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below : but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth, (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below : so 20 always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride.
Page 59 - 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.
Page 163 - Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.
Page 95 - A man cannot speak to his son but as a father ; to his wife but as a husband ; to his enemy but upon terms : whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person.
Page 18 - THE joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears ; they cannot utter the one, nor they will not utter the other. Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter ; they increase the cares of life, but they mitigate the remembrance of death.
Page 56 - For take an example of a dog, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on when he finds himself maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a God, or melior natura, which courage is manifestly such as that creature, without that confidence, of a better nature than his own could never attain. So man, when he resteth and assureth himself upon divine protection and favor, gathereth a force and faith which human nature in itself could not obtain.
Page 91 - ... certain it is that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the communicating and discoursing with another: he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into words; finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation.

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