Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles. - Thomas Browne

It is a brave act of valour to contemne death, but where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valour to dare to live

Yet do I believe that all this is true, which indeed my reason would persuade me to be false; and this I think is no vulgar part of faith to believe a thing not only above, but contrary to reason, and against the argument of our proper senses.

To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history.
But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the Pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the Temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it.