When Men Are Most Sure

The Corruption Of The Best Things Gives Rise To The Worst.

There Is Only One Vice, Which May Be Found In Life With As Strong Features, And As High A Colouring As Needs Be Employed By Any Satyrist Or Comic Poet; And That Is Avarice.

A Wise Man Proportions His Belief To The Evidence.

.. That Which Renders Morality An Active Principle And Constitutes Virtue Our Happiness, And Vice Our Misery: It Is Probable, I Say, That This Final Sentence Depends On Some Internal Sense Or Feeling, Which Nature Has Made Universal In The Whole Species.

I Know With Certainty, That [an Honest Man] Is Not To Put His Hand Into The Fire, And Hold It There, Till It Be Consumed: And Thisevent, I Think I Can Foretell With The Same Assurance, As That, If He Throw Himself Out At The Window, And Meet With No Obstruction, He Will Not Remain A Moment Suspended In The Air.