A lie faces God and shrinks from man.
Friends are thieves of time.
Generally he perceived in men of devout simplicity this opinion: that the secrets of nature were the secrets of God, part of that glory into which man is not to press too boldly.
If a man’s wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores, splitters of hairs.
Mysteries are due to secrecy.
He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question when a man should marry? ‘A young man not yet, an elder man not at all.’
When a bee stings, she dies. She cannot sting and live. When men sting, their better selves die. Every sting kills a better instinct. Men must not turn bees and kill themselves in stinging others.
I knew a wise man that had it for a by-word, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, “Stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner.”
Men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with facts.
The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall, or at least an eclipse.
First the amendment of their own minds. For the removal of the impediments of the mind will sooner clear the passages of fortune than the obtaining fortune will remove the impediments of the mind.
Nothing doth so much keep men out of the Church, and drive men out of the Church, as breach of unity.
Money is like muck, not good unless spread.
The universe must not be narrowed down to the limit of our understanding, but our understanding must be stretched and enlarged to take in the image of the universe as it is discovered.
The human understanding, from its peculiar nature, easily supposes a greater degree of order and equality in things than it really finds.
Revenge is a kind of wild justice.
But by far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and to the undertaking of new tasks and provinces therein is found in this-that men despair and think things impossible.
Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason.
When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him.
To spend too much time in studies is sloth.