Christianity teacheth me that what I charitably give alive, I carry with me dead; and experience teacheth me that what I leave behind, I lose. I will carry that treasure with me by giving it, which the worldling loseth by keeping it; so, while his corpse shall carry nothing but a winding cloth to his grave, I shall be richer under the earth than I was above it.
I would fain know all that I need, and all that I may. I leave God's secrets to himself. It is happy for me that God makes me of his court, and not of his council.
Death did not first strike Adam, the first sinful man, nor Cain, the first hypocrite, but Abel, the innocent and righteous. The first soul that met death overcame death; the first soul parted from earth went to heaven. Death argues not displeasure, because he whom God loved best dies first, and the murderer is punished with living.
I account this body nothing but a close prison to my soul; and the earth a larger prison to my body. I may not break prison, till I be loosed by death; but I will leave it, not unwillingly, when I am loosed.
There be three usual causes of ingratitude upon a benefit received - envy, pride, and covetousness; envy, looking more at other's benefits than our own; pride, looking more at ourselves than at the benefit; covetousness, looking more at what we would have than at what we have.
The practices of good men are more subject to error than their speculations. I will, then, honor good examples, but endeavor to live according to good precepts.
Fools measure actions, after they are done, by the event; wise men beforehand, by the rules of reason and right. The former look to the end, to judge of the act. Let me look to the act, and leave the end with God.
Christianity teacheth me that what I charitably give alive, I carry with me dead; and experience teacheth me that what I leave behind, I lose. I will carry that treasure with me by giving it, which the worldling loseth by keeping it; so, while his corpse shall carry nothing but a winding cloth to his grave, I shall be richer under the earth than I was above it.