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.
The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this-that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.
Half of science is putting forth the right questions.
Men suppose their reason has command over their words; still it happens that words in return exercise authority on reason.
Atheism leads a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue.
Atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man.
More dangers have deceived men than forced them.
If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.
The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied.