Youth is the time of getting, middle age of improving, and old age of spending.

Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge: fitter to bruise than polish.

I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who says my hand a needle better fits,
A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong
For such despite they cast on female wits. . . .

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant. If we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

If what I do prove well, it won't advance,
They'll say it's stolen, or else it was by chance.