Wise Men gain, and poor Men live, by the Superfluities of Fools.
Till Follies become ruinous, the World is better with than it would be without them.
A Fool is angry that he is the Food of a Knave, forgetting that it is the End of his Creation.
Of Hope.
Hope is a kind Cheat; in the Minute of our Disappointment we are angry, but upon the whole matter there is no Pleasure without it.
It is so much a pleasanter thing than Truth to the greatest Part of the World, that it hath all their Kindness, the other only hath their Respect.
Hope is generally a wrong Guide, though it is very good Company by the way. It brusheth through Hedge and Ditch till it cometh to a great Leap, and there it is apt to fall and break its Bones.
It would be well if Hopes carried Men only to the top of the Hill, without throwing them afterwards down the Precipice.
The Hopes of a Fool are blind Guides, those of a Man of Sense doubt often of their Way.
Men should do with their Hopes as they do with tame Fowl, cut their Wings that they may not fly over the Wall.