"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is."
"Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider."
"It is a secret both in nature and state, that it is safer to change many things than one."
"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator."
"Nature is a labyrinth in which the very haste you move with will make you lose your way."
"Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor."
"A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds."
"Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise."
"There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion."
"Philosophy, when superficially studied, excites doubt; when thoroughly explored, it dispels it."
"We cannot command nature except by obeying her."
"The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery."
"The lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes a wrong one. Nay, it is obvious that the more active and swift the latter is the further he will go astray."
"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties."
"Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books."
"It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tost upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage ground of truth ... and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below."
"Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid."
"Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon."
"Vain-glorious men are the scorn of the wise, the admiration of fools, the idols of paradise, and the slaves of their own vaunts."
"Knowlege is power."
"The master of superstition, is the people; and in all superstition, wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order."
"Suspicions amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they ever fly by twilight."
"Knowledge is power.--Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est. 12 Meditationes Sacr&ae;lig. De H&ae;ligresibus."
"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. In everything man has accomplished, we have only manipulated nature into doing what it is."
"Reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man."