The errors of definitions multiply themselves according as the reckoning proceeds; and lead men into absurdities, which at last they see but cannot avoid, without reckoning anew from the beginning.
The disembodied spirit is immortal; there is nothing of it that can grow old or die. But the embodied spirit sees death on the horizon as soon as its day dawns.
Opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotion to what men fear, and talking of things casual for prognostics, consisteth the natural seeds of religion.
The power of a man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good.
That a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself.
The reputation of power IS power.
To understand this for sense it is not required that a man should be a geometrician or a logician, but that he should be mad.
There is more in Mersenne than in all the universities together.
True and False are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood.
The “value” or “worth” of a man is, as of all other things, his price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power.
Setting themselves against reason, as often as reason is against them.
That wee have of Geometry, which is the mother of all Naturall Science, wee are not indebted for it to the Schools.
As soon as a thought darts, I write it down.
Covenants without swords are but words.
No mans error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it.
If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies.
Reason is the Soul of the Law.
To be seduced by Orators, as a Monarch by Flatterers.
Intemperance is naturally punished with diseases; rashness, with mischance; injustice; with violence of enemies; pride, with ruin; cowardice, with oppression; and rebellion, with slaughter.
Corporations are may lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man.