"Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and, as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation."

"Behold, now, another providence of God. A ship comes into the harbor."

"Cold comfort to fill their hungry stomach."

"But it pleased God to visit us then with death daily, and with so general a disease that the living were scarce able to bury the dead."

"The loss of...honest and industrious men's lives cannot be valued at any price."

"Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness."

"Being thus arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element."

"Men trade unionists are accused of sex privilege and prejudice … A belief in the divine right of every man to his job is not peculiar to kings and capitalists, and men in organised trades are not disposed to share these advantages with a host of women competitors."

"Mr. Selden was a person whom no character can part flatter, or transmit in any expressions equal to his merit and virtue. He was of so stupendous learning in all kinds and in all languages, (as may appear in his excellent and transcendent writings,) that a man would have thought he had been entirely conversant amongst books, and had never spent an hour but in reading and writing; yet his humanity, courtesy, and affability was such, that he would have been thought to have been bred in the best courts, but that his good nature, charity, and delight in doing good, and in communicating all he knew, exceeded that breeding. His style in all his writings seems harsh and sometimes obscure; which is not wholly to be imputed to the abstruse subjects of which he commonly treated, out of the paths trod by other men; but to a little undervaluing the beauty of a style, and too much propensity to the language of antiquity: but in his conversation he was the most dear discourser, and had the best faculty of making hard things easy, and presenting them to the understanding, of any man that hath been known. Mr. Hyde was wont to say, that he valued himself upon nothing more than upon having had Mr. Selden's acquaintance from the time he was very young; and held it with great delight as long as they were suffered to continue together in London; and he was very much troubled always when he heard him blamed, censured, and reproached, for staying in London, and in the parliament, after they were in rebellion, and in the worst times, which his age obliged him to do; and how wicked soever the actions were which were every day done, he was confident he had not given his consent to them; but would have hindered them if he could with his own safety, to which he was always enough indulgent. If he had some infirmities with other men, they were weighed down with wonderful and prodigious abilities and excellencies in the other scale."

"A king is a thing men have made for their own sakes, for quietness' sake. Just as in a family one man is appointed to buy the meat."

"Preachers say, Do as I say, not as I do."

"Pleasure is nothing else but the intermission of pain."

"Wise men say nothing in dangerous times."

"Never tell your resolution beforehand."

"The law against witches does not prove there be any; but it punishes the malice of those people that use such means to take away men's lives."

"Never king dropped out of the clouds."

"Syllables govern the world."

"They that govern the most make the least noise."

"Thou little thinkest what a little foolery governs the world."

"Marriage is a desperate thing."

"Of all actions of a man's life his marriage does least concern other people, yet of all actions of our life 'tis most meddled with by other people."

"Philosophy is nothing but discretion."

"Take a straw and throw it up into the air — you may see by that which way the wind is."

"Few men make themselves masters of the things they write or speak."

"Wit and wisdom are born with a man."

"No man is the wiser for his learning."

"The parish makes the constable, and when the constable is made he governs the parish."

"Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to refute him."

"Gentelmen heve ever been more temperate in their religion than common people, as having more reason."

"Equity is a roguish thing. For Law we have a measure, know what to trust to; Equity is according to the conscience of him that is Chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, so is Equity. 'T is all one as if they should make the standard for the measure we call a "foot" a Chancellor's foot; what an uncertain measure would this be! One Chancellor has a long foot, another a short foot, a third an indifferent foot. 'T is the same thing in the Chancellor's conscience."

"Commonly we say a judgement falls upon a man for something in him we cannot abide."

"'Tis not the drinking that is to be blamed, but the excess."

"Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice; and yet everybody is content to hear."

"Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes; they were easiest for his feet."

"The House of Commons is called the Lower House, in twenty Acts of Parliament; but what are twenty Acts of Parliament amongst Friends?"

"Scrutamini scripturas (Let us look at the scriptures). These two words have undone the world."

"You will want a book which contains not man's thoughts, but God's — not a book that may amuse you, but a book that can save you — not even a book that can instruct you, but a book on which you can venture an eternity — not only a book which can give relief to your spirit, but redemption to your soul — a book which contains salvation, and conveys it to you, one which shall at once be the Saviour's book and the sinner's."

"To my great surprise they seem really written from the heart, not for the honour of his head, and in truth do no great honour to the last, nor show much feeling in the first, except in wishing for his son's fine gentleman-hood."

"They teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master."

"For my part, I like more straight-forward work."

"It wasn't until I grew up and read Lord Chesterfield that I began my education. He became my tutor and the public library my university."

"[On sex] The pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, the expense damnable."

"You foolish man, you do not understand your own foolish business."

"It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and therefore one seldom does it at all."

"In short, let it be your maxim through life, to know all you can know, yourself; and never to trust implicitly to the informations of others."

"Our conjectures pass upon us for truths; we will know what we do not know, and often, what we cannot know: so mortifying to our pride is the base suspicion of ignorance."

"Let this be one invariable rule of your conduct—never to show the least symptom of resentment, which you cannot, to a certain degree, gratify; but always to smile, where you cannot strike."

"People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt."

"The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man’s general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings, would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown, would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters, turns upon one shilling."

"There are some occasions in which a man must tell half his secret, in order to conceal the rest; but there is seldom one in which a man should tell all. Great skill is necessary to know how far to go, and where to stop."