The folly of one man is the fortune of another.
A bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint.
There are many wise men that have secret hearts and transparent countenances.
In nature things move violently to their place, and calmly in their place.
Deformed persons commonly take revenge on nature.
Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man’s mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.
Such philosophy as shall not vanish in the fume of subtile, sublime, or delectable speculation but shall be operative to the endowment and betterment of man’s life.
Never any knowledge was delivered in the same order it was invented.
I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends, as I have moderate civil ends: for I have taken all knowledge to be my province.
Such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happen much oftener.
Many secrets of art and nature are thought by the unlearned to be magical.
Nothing is to be feared but fear.
To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none.
The End of our Foundation is the knowledge of Causes; and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of Human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible.
There was never miracle wrought by God to convert an atheist, because the light of nature might have led him to confess a God.
In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.
Those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts.
To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affection; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar.
Princes are like heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times, and which have much veneration, but no rest.
The divisions of science are not like different lines that meet in one angle, but rather like the branches of trees that join in one trunk.